Pandemic: of Twins and Tails

Chapters

Day 2: Disconnect
Day XX: Kindred Spirit
Day 3 + 4: Heads or Tails
Day 5: Lockdown
Day 6: Horseplay (Isn't in the Cards)
Day XX: Relay
Day 7 + 8: Twins
Day 11: Part 1 - A Brother's Vision
Day 11: Part 2 - A Sister's First Steps
Day 12: Night Shift, Counter-spell
Cycle 2: Day 1 - Marked
Day 2 - Reassignment
Day XX: Prelude
Cycle 1, Day 1: Self-Isolation

Day 2: Disconnect

The light of the sun streamed down onto the pages of the novel he'd been reading. As much as Jacen wanted to claim he was just keeping the book safe for Abigail, he had to admit the characters of Harry Potter were interesting. That's why he didn't mind keeping her novels up in his tree house. Her evangelical Christian parents couldn't browbeat her over 'the devil's work' if they didn't know she had it.

"Just a shame the author's kinda an awful person," a voice whispered from the dark corner of the room.

As he rested on his belly, turning the pages, he smiled. There was something so much more appealing to fantasy set in pseudo-modern settings than the sci-fantasy his parents kept trying to push on him. Space wizards fighting Nazis in a fictional galaxy far from his seemed like too much of a genre-crunch. Harry Potter was a simple concept: fantasy magic school, but set in the recent past on Earth. Not like Star Wars with its cluttered space Vietnam insurgency with wizards, space Nazis, aliens, robots, and giant lasers.

"Stop ignoring me!" the voice in the corner cried. It sounded almost despondent to his ears, but that was just a trick to garner pity.

Pain, as if he'd just been stabbed, filled his belly. He rolled onto his side and pulled up his black Metallica tee, but saw no wounds on his abdomen. The first thought he'd had was his appendix, but Dad had told him that was more to the right. This was centred, however—just beneath his belly-button. It wasn't fading, either. He sat up slowly and placed the book back in the plastic container he kept that and others in.

"Ignoring me won't change things!" she screamed as he lifted up the trap door and started climbing down the ladder. "You don't have to keep putting yourself through this! Just talk to me!" It was as she said though... this never changed. Always he would start climbing down, and he always—without variance—fell.

The next time he opened his eyes, he was in a hospital bed. Mom was sitting beside him, crying as she held his hand. Dad he could see through the glass in the door, arguing heatedly with someone. He looked so upset, and Jacen didn't understand why. Why was he here? "Mom? What's going on?"

"Easy, sweetie," his mother insisted as he tried to sit up. Just as well, as the pain in his belly returned, and he reflexively rolled to his side in the fetal position. "Do you remember what they taught you about the difference between boys and girls in school?" When he nodded, she placed her free hand in front of her abdomen. "What do girls have here that boys don't?"

He thought for a moment before giving an answer. "A womb. Why?"

She squeezed his hand as she reached out to hold her hand on his belly. "When your Dad found you screaming and clutching your belly in the back yard, he thought your appendix burst," she whispered. "When we brought you in, though...the doctors found something else instead."

Jacen wasn't stupid; he could follow the trend of the conversation just as he could any other. "I'm a boy though," he groaned. "Boys don't have wombs, and I don't a vag, so..."

His mother released his hand, and she looked away. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and for a moment he thought she was hurt. "When you were still growing inside me, you weren't always alone..." Her voice was barely audible over the incoherent argument between his father and the woman he assumed to be a doctor. "For a time, you had a twin, but something happened, and then one day she was gone. You absorbed her as you grew... but parts of her still grew with you..."

A pair of hands wrapped around his throat as a girl the same age straddled his chest. She had the same mismatched blue and green eyes that he did, although her hair was far longer, as if it'd never been cut. As her grip tightened, she leaned in close—impossibly so by human flexibility standards—and screamed. "Why did you kill me!?"

Jacen snapped awake on his couch, drenched in an ice-cold sweat. It was disorienting to wake up here, because he'd been certain that he'd gone to sleep on his bed. Yet here he was, lying on his couch in nothing but pyjama bottoms as the midday sun streamed in through the windows. Sleepwalking... haven't done that since I was five.

Remembering the dream he'd been having—some twisted version of the day he'd found out about the sister who never lived—he brought his hand up to his lower abdomen, where a faint scar traced across just beneath his belly-button. It had been a shocking day to say the least, and he didn't imagine many—mostly—genetic males could say they'd had a hysterectomy at ten years old.

"You found out a lot about yourself that day," the voice in his head said in a casual tone. "Not only did you eat your sister and become an abomination, but you stole her womb and then threw it away."

With a sigh, he stood up and made his way over to the kitchenette. God, why are my eyes so itchy? he thought as he set the kettle on and took out a tea bag. "What do you want me to say?" he asked aloud. It was obvious from past experience that conversing with her only invited her to stick around longer, but he was tired, stressed, and confused. "I didn't choose what happened in the womb, and I didn't throw hers away. It was gonna kill me."

The voice didn't respond, but he knew intellectually what the response would have been. Why behave like you want to die then? It was simple; he felt guilty for exactly the reasons the manifestation of his guilt had told him. It took a few years, but Dr. Sato helped him recognise it and put a name to it—survivor's guilt. Even before he'd found out about his sister as a child, his life felt like something was missing. At first, he just felt lonely and resorted to interacting with an imaginary friend until he met Pete and Gage, back before he came out and was living as Abigail.

Then, when Mom told him about his twin, Jaina, he felt guilty. Even though the intellectual side of him knew it wasn't his fault, and that these things just happened with no rhyme or reason, he blamed himself. It was hard not to when he saw the oddities of his parents in the new context. The sad look his mother sometimes got when she'd watched him playing, and his father's downward spiral—especially after that incident; he blamed himself for both. No matter how hard he tried, though, he found he could never shed that feeling of guilt. That's why she manifested.

As his tea steeped, he called out to his digital assistant. "Jaina, bring up all of the flagged posts regarding Lazy Pines on the TV." He looked across the room to the TV as he leaned against the counter. There was a lot of posts to go through, by the looks of it, and new ones flooding in by the minute. "Exactly how hot a topic is Lazy Pines right now?"

"At present, Lazy Pines is trending at number-three on social media." It actually caught him by surprise when the assistant responded, because it typically didn't listen for follow-up responses without some sort of voice prompt. Must've been an update overnight. "It is currently the most searched term in the United States." Removing the teabag and placing it in the green bin, he started over to the couch. "Additionally, the Colorado Department of Health has declared a public health emergency for Lazy Pines and the surrounding area."

With a groan, he rubbed at his eyes again, and walked out to his bedroom with the cup of tea. My phone's fully charged; good. He snatched it up, and then wandered back out to the couch. He carefully took a seat, set the mobile device down, and grabbed the remote so he could scroll through the feed.

It was getting bad. Now there were reports of people with animal ears, as well as people outside the area having the same symptoms. This was a big fucking mess. If it was a health emergency, and the town was a hot-spot, his instincts told him it wouldn't be long until they were forced into a quarantine. Definitely sounding like a good idea now.

He glanced over to his phone as he sipped his tea. There had been plenty of push notifications on the lock-screen when he'd unplugged the smart device, but beyond catching a notification for his email app stating he had mail from the building's owner, and several instant messages from Pete, he hadn't paid it much mind. It was far more alarming that he had slept until noon.

Just as he considered picking up the phone and calling Dr. Weintraub's office, the screen lit up with a new notification. He reached over and held it up. Rather than a message from Pete, however, it was from Gage's handle. Chugging down the still hot beverage, he opened the instant messenger app.

You get 9News up there, right? Check it out, Jacen. {Also, please change your handle like we talked about.} :HexsideHero

Pete sent me that picture you sent him last night; did you get me sick with this shit too!? :HexsideHero

A few moments later, he'd tuned in to find a local channel that happened to be rebroadcasting the segment that Gage was talking about. There was a dark-haired man on screen, and in the background were several people with garish hair and eye colours. "A strange affliction has affected the residents of Lazy Pines with an odd assortment of symptoms, not the least of which is strangely coloured hair and eyes. One would initially think this was nothing more than some fad of hair dye and coloured contacts. Nothing could be further from the truth ..."

The man—Bruce Donner, Jacen thought he'd introduced himself as—proceeded to interview several people. Some seemed to be handling things worse than others. The first interviewee seemed to be in a perpetual state of freaking the fuck out, and had to be bleeped by the station. Still, she was definitely a good example of the sort of things afflicting the town, as her yellow and orange hair and tail could attest to.

Instead, it was the couple the man next interviewed that interested him. The way they told it, their daughter was the first to start showing symptoms, and then them soon after. They were at a loss for what to do, as the doctor in town wasn't able to tell much. It being potentially linked to the flu made him remember what Pete had said last night about Gage getting sick.

When the reporter started talking about some half-horse half-man boogeyman in the town, he began to feel ill. If that was a real person, was that the future for everyone in that town—for him? Was he doomed to turn into some dumb beast? I really, really hope that I'm not still capable of spreading this, he thought to himself as he shut off the TV. How many people are gonna face that fate because of me?

Already he could see it in his mind's eye—several of his neighbours gathered around his apartment door, screaming for him to come out. All of them sported unreasonable eye colours and hair. Some were wielding sporting equipment from the complex's gymnasium, while others had broken bottles. The only thing they all had in common was that all of them looked furious as a Jacen with animal ears, a tail, and hooves opened the door.

He tried in to dismiss the mental image as this mutated iteration of him was murdered repeatedly by the crowd, sometimes in increasingly violent ways. That was impossible though; his neighbours didn't even know he was infected, and he hadn't exactly told anyone that he'd been in the hot-zone. Besides, even if they did find out, he'd probably be swept away into some government lab long before they could get to him.

Or what if the United States government took an interest in me? Depending on their motives and the channels, it probably wouldn't take much for the government to agree to an extradition order. After all, he still had his American citizenship in addition to his Canadian citizenship. They could bring up a national security thing or make up something that sticks, Or they might send the CIA to spirit me away to some black site...

With a great deal of effort, he managed to force his thinking away from what might come. Instead, it was more important to focus on the now. What were his options? What was his next step? Was it worthwhile to make an escape plan if things went tits-up?

For the time being, he had shelter, water, and enough food to last him a week or two. Barring any unforeseen complications, he could easily stay locked down here in his apartment and weather this out. Although I'll run out of smokes before too long. It wasn't impossible to avoid his neighbours, but it'd be suspicious if they didn't see him in a while. He'd have to keep just active enough on the Nextdoor app to not have the elderly Karen next door come doing a wellness check.

A bug-out bag wouldn't do him any good, nor would running. Someone might infer guilt, or that he was intentionally trying to spread the condition, if he ran. Instead, he'd be better served preparing. If he was gonna have a tail, maybe it'd be a good idea to... what, exactly? He didn't exactly have a positive track record with sewing. Anything he tried would probably just result in mangled clothing. No, the only thing he really needed to prepare was a bag of essentials if he was to be whisked off. Wallet, important documents, that sort of shit. What else, though?

A notification sound from his phone reminded him that he'd been getting ready to talk to until the news sent him on a spiral. He wasn't usually one to leave people waiting, but he couldn't be faulted for it today, surely. Exactly as he thought, though, there was a new message on his lock screen from Gage.

You really gonna leave me on read, bro? :HexsideHero

Maybe it was the guilt talking, or the fact that he wanted to be a more supportive friend, but he acquiesced to his friend's request to change his handle on the messenger app. Gone was the alias FinalHorcrux, replacing it with PestilenceOfHorses. It seemed fitting with his potential as a plague rat, especially if people were indeed turning into horses of all things. Plus, self-deprecating humour is fun, he thought as he rubbed his eyes.

PestilenceOfHorses: I'm really sorry about that; I didn't know I was walking through some biological warfare testing site at the time. Never meant to get you sick!

PestilenceOfHorses: You okay?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm still feeling a little hoarse, but the fever broke and I can finally stomach food again. :HexsideHero

PestilenceOfHorses: ... I genuinely can't tell with you if that was a horse pun or just coincidental.

What about you? The new handle's a bit on the ~~nose~~ muzzle, isn't it? :HexsideHero

You gotta have what all those people have... aren't you scared? :HexsideHero

PestilenceOfHorses: Yeah... Hopefully if I keep my head down, there won't be too many people up this way who catch it.

PestilenceOfHorses: Government's probably gonna stick me in a lab when they find out, though. For now, I gotta leave my doc a voicemail; my eyes itch like fuck and I feel like I'm having an allergic reaction.

Although his first reflex was to immediately call the Weintraub's office like he said, he was curious about what the landlord had to say. After all, the super had done this before, and if the response from his neighbours on Nextdoor were anything to judge by, he was hardly the man's only victim. Would they be contrite? Or would they attempt to browbeat him into silence?

Mr. Cadlow,

Although we appreciate that you were no doubt frustrated by Mr. Caraway's inexcusable behaviour, we would appreciate in the future if you keep your grievances off of social media. Since your little stunt last night, we have been getting non-stop calls and emails claiming that David has been stealing from them. It is hard enough to find good superintendents these days without things like this spiralling out of control. We've been left with no other option than to let him go.

As a token of goodwill, and by way of apology, we are waiving your rent for the month. We value you as a tenant, and would appreciate if you would continue to work with us until the end of your lease to ensure that the complex continues to flourish. All we ask in return is that you take down the social media post and not stir up any further drama.

Regards,

Management

"Translation: we value your money and want you to continue spending money at our facilities," he grumbled as he closed the email app. "Joke's on you guys. I don't think a horse can make use of your gym or laundry."

With a roll of his still-itchy eyes, he dialled up the doctor's practice. It wasn't unsurprising that he got the answering machine; although a few practices in the area maintained weekend hours, his doctor's didn't. "Dr. Weintraub, this is Jacen Cadlow calling back in regards to our discussion at yesterday's appointment." He glanced back over to the now-muted TV, where some news anchors seemed to be discussing the Lazy Pines situation—at least, if the subtitles were any indication. "You asked me to call ASAP if I started experiencing any issues with my eyes, so... here I am," he said, somewhat unsure of what to say otherwise. "I need to know what my next steps are, because I know you've seen the news; call me back as soon as possible."

I should really eat something, he thought, glancing at the clock. I could make a batch of bean and lentil soup, and save myself having to cook much over the coming days.

As he rose from the couch, Jacen threw the phone down onto the cushions as he made for the kitchen. Last night's pain had returned, although this time it felt far more concentrated behind his eyes, like a swelling pressure. Even as his resolve to throw together a bean and lentil soup, he redirected his course to the bathroom and its medicine cabinet.

As he removed the extra-strength acetaminophen from the cabinet hidden within the mirror, he caught sight of his reflection. There was something off about his eyes, and that wasn't in reference to the redness brought on by all of his rubbing. Upon leaning in closer to get a better look, he saw that his left eye was starting to look dark, with flecks of what appeared to be a dark purple among the blue. Conversely, the right side had traces of a blush pink spreading throughout the iris.

It was yet more evidence that whatever was happening to him was not playing nicely with his abnormal physiology. His heterochromia had, as a youth, bothered him because of the lack of symmetry. He'd read a lot about what others found attractive, and symmetry had been a common factor. His self-esteem was already crippled at the time due to the revelation of his sister, and although he hadn't been interested in romance, he had still been a teenage boy. Seeing it highlighted yet again only served to worsen his confidence.

Shaking his head, he snapped open the bottle, popped a few pills, and then stormed out to the kitchen. Much of his grocery delivery he'd packed away when they arrived yesterday evening, although there were still a few things he left out in favour of quicker access. The ingredients for his next meal, for example, were still laid out on the counter where he'd left them.

With a frustrated sigh, Jacen set a pot of water atop the stove to boil. While he waited, he ran a hand through his two-tone mess of hair. Why couldn't I just have lucked out and gotten matching eyes? That wriggling worm of doubt that threatened to bring out her opinions had once again surfaced. May as well draw a dotted line down the front of me with the words 'Cut Here'.

Once the pot reached a roiling boil, he grabbed a spoon and the can of granulated soup stock he'd ordered yesterday. Even as he popped off plastic cap and peeled away the foil seal, something smelled... off. He couldn't place a finger on why it smelled off, or if it was even a good or bad thing. To make sure, he took a pinch of it on his fingertip and put it to his tongue.

The flavour made him gag. While the can tumbled to the floor, spilling its repulsive contents all over the place and filling the air with it's vile odour, he ran over to the sink. He didn't bother getting a glass, either; the moment the water was running, he stuck his entire face under the stream before taking a mouthful to rinse out his mouth.

"Ugh, fuck!" he muttered as he glared at the can and the mess it'd made on the floor. That was decidedly not the vegetable stock he'd ordered. Rolling the damnable thing over with his toe, he nearly punted it with rage. The label read Beef Stock. "Can't fucking trust anyone to do anything right anymore. I specifically ordered for vegetable stock for a fucking reason, you absolute cockbags..."

He'd never been able to stomach meat—not the taste, not the smell, and it didn't even stay down. That aversion to meat he'd had since childhood was never this bad though. Sure, he'd hated the smell, but he got used to it because he lived in a world where most of the population did eat meat. This was an entirely different level though.

Why's it taste rancid?

Author's Note

Fun fact: although not all cases result in intersex traits, chimaerism in humans (especially resultant from the fusion of two or more zygotes) has been known to result in different forms of intersex development. Additionally, it can cause heterochromia iridium in the iris and hair, having two sets of DNA, and even two different blood types. Unfortunately, it can also result in autoimmune issues.

Beginning of the news segment is quoted directly from Chapter 21 - Panic, of Pandemic.

It's worth noting that typically, an individual's aversion to meat doesn't come in until the fifth day of the transformation. For Jacen, who is largely vegetarian, it's not necessarily started, but he might believe that it has since he's been told others start experiencing aversion.

Day XX: Kindred Spirit

While taking a break from being productive, Search Fragment couldn't help but watch as Agent Nine stormed through the door to their portable. The groan of straining metal could be heard as the earth pony pulled the door shut, and when she looked, some of the metal had warped under the force exerted by the angry earth pony. If Nine noticed, however, she did a very good job of hiding it. Instead, she took a seat at her desk and took out a flask and took a pull.

In all the years the analyst had known the agent, she'd only seen the mare drink on the job—outside work was a different beast entirely—when she was frustrated. Clearly her meeting with Princesses Twilight and Cadance had not gone the way she'd have liked. Probably way too much legal red tape for Equestrians to get directly involved in the matter. Not that it's exactly our place as pencil pushers to speak out about the treatment of these transformed humans—especially not when a fellow equestrian was to blame for the situation in the first place.

"I gotta ask..." Fragment started in Equestrian, even as she saw the Nine grabbing her workstation's computer mouse with her free hoof. "Why are you so interested in this particular ETS victim? I admit I'm just as angry at what I saw in the doctor's final notes about seeing their patient, as well as the second hoof account of the incident. The fact that we have almost zero documentation of their whereabouts after the fact is straight-up disturbing, but the way you were going on before the meeting, you were practically calling for the Princesses to take them into protective custody."

Agent Nine had definitely heard her, but her focus was on her monitor. She definitely wasn't ignoring her, but instead it seemed as though she were collecting her thoughts as she looked something up. After several minutes of silence, where Fragment continued pretending to work, the taupe earth pony took in a deep breath, put away her flask, and shut her eyes. "Not many ponies—no, not even in the agency—know about my history, but it has a lot to do with what's been bugging me about this," she answered in English. It struck Fragment as odd, as the humans definitely had the office monitored; how else did they know that she took a document outside without clearance? So why share this where a bunch of eavesdropping humans could listen in? "You rarely hear about pony trafficking, and the Royal Guard does a damn good job keeping it that way, but it happens...

"Me and my sister—a pegasus named Blossomforth—were orphaned in Baltimare after our Mom got sick. Got put into the foster system, but most pegasi looking to adopt weren't ready to take on an earth pony too. At least, none of the Cloudsdale types that showed an interest in my sister." There was a measure of anger in Nine's voice, but it was fairly muted. She pushed away the mouse and swivelled her chair so she could look directly at Fragment. "Eventually a couple did take us. Honestly, that's what had me so suspicious of them. I was her big sister, and I was supposed to keep her safe like Mom told me. So when that bastard came into the room to check on us, I... overreacted... and then both adults hated me."

It took a moment before Search Fragment could muster up a response. "What happened?"

"Son of a whore took me out one day while Blossom was at gymnastics. Said he was gonna take me to a fair 'by the pier'," she answered with a dark laugh. "Sold me to some black-market merchant from Klugetown, who happened to be docked at the pier. I won't go into the horrors I was subjected to over the next ten years, but suffice to say I forgot my own name, since I was only ever addressed as Slave #9. When it was clear that the Abyssinian that bought me was getting ready to start pimping me out, I escaped and made my way to Somnambula where I spent the next two years hustling travellers to make ends meet. Despite the hurt it represented, I kept my number as a reminder of the darkness that can lurk behind the kindness of strangers. When I got my mark, I cemented my new identity: Nine of Clubs. Not long after that, I caught the eye of a S.M.I.L.E. field agent, and the rest is history."

The unicorn levitated her empty coffee mug over to the provided water cooler and filled it. She regarded her supervisor with concern, while occasionally looking to the door as she drank. She shared her story, but Search still seemed to be missing some dots. "What's this have to do with the Cadlow case?" she finally asked.

"My adoptive 'parents' made my sister forget I ever even existed, and with ponies as vulnerable as these former humans, I worry that the same could happen to one of them." She shrugged. "Seeing a dead paper trail after reading that file, I can't help but worry something similar might happen to them. Especially if they've been isolated."

So Nine was concerned that Cadlow, or rather what was left behind by the transformation, might wind up in some awful place facing inequine treatment like she'd been. "If it helps, I did come across the documentation for their physician," she said, levitating over a file folder. "If they ended up at the same shelter as her, she might be able to tell you more than what we've been given."

The supervisor gave her an appreciative look before opening the folder. That left Search to her own devices. Rather than deal with the paper work in her inbox, however, she pulled up a digital copy of the Cadlow file on her own workstation and started to review. Although the man lived in another country, he was listed as having something called dual-citizenship. His place of birth was listed as Savannah, Georgia.

She frowned as an idea struck her. It'd certainly get her in a tonne of trouble if she acted rashly, due to the whole non-interference thing, but... If the Equestrian government couldn't help them, maybe there was somepony who could. Her eyes flicked over to her supervisor again before pulling up a file on an increasingly common ideology held by transformed humans: Shimmerism. There were ponies who believed that Sunset Shimmer had the right idea, and all but revered her as a saint. Although many of the Shimmerists were pro-transformation, there were several moderate factions cropping up that believed it should be a choice. Some of them were staunchly anti-human, but others seemed more accepting towards their former bretheren.

It seemed like a great deal of the southern portions of this country might be falling under the sway of this ideology. One of the particularly prominent factions was almost suspiciously pro-human, going so far as to lean into commerce and starting businesses tailored towards pony-oriented goods. There was even a rapidly expanding town by the name of Riverview that was becoming a hub for ponies who weren't completely abandoning their human roots. They were very vocal and might even have a degree of political sway if she read between the redacted lines.

The problem became that they didn't have any recent data on Cadlow—no location, no reports of deaths, not even whether they accepted their transformation or if they wanted to go back to normal. If they did get the Shimmerists involved would Cadlow be appreciative? It was possible that if they could exert some pressure on the United States government to request a transfer, and they'd be delivered straight into open arms of the would-be cult of Sunset Shimmer. If they wanted to return to being human, what guarantee was there that these ponies might browbeat them into staying a pony?

There simply wasn't enough concrete information available on the exact dispositions of any of the major factions. Still, she noted down the names and districts of a few of the groups that might be vocal enough to get something done. Depending on Cadlow's circumstances, Sunset Blessing might just be the lesser of two evils. "Hey, Nine?" she called across the room, as she opened up the electronic mail program on her workstation. "If you can get any information on that case and the princesses still can't help, it might help to reach out to some of the ponies on the list I'm about to email you. Just... uh... Just don't freak out at the first name, alright?"

Day 3 + 4: Heads or Tails

He didn't feel much like cooking. Not after the soup stock debacle on earlier, and the hell of a time he had cleaning the granulated stock without kicking up the smell or wetting the granules and risking staining the floor. While it was trying, limiting his exposure to others in case he was contagious, he was too stressed out to give a fuck. As a result, he ended up just ordering in a extra-large cheese pizza.

That night, he ended up just digging out a gaming console that he bought a few years back. In lacking anything else to do, he needed a distraction. Given that the console allowed him to play games of eras past, it was quite the nostalgia trip for him. That said, Mario Party was never any fun if he couldn't get into a scrap with Pete over stars. Instead, he played a fair portion of the Legend of Zelda franchise while eating pizza and drinking beer well into Sunday morning.

Sunday, or at least what little daylight he hadn't slept through, was largely the same as Saturday. He chatted with Pete and Gage, complaining about how his ass was sore and that he was probably due to start sprouting a tail. They both did their best to keep his mind off it, but Gage was growing noticeably agitated throughout the day. Beyond that, he checked in occasionally on the news. The idea was that if he was focused on games or TV, he wasn't freaking out over what was happening to him, and in turn she wasn't going to harass him.

Unfortunately, it was as Robert Burns wrote—the best laid plans of mice and ~~ponies~~ men often go awry. When he was watching a news channel that evening, he discovered he'd been right. Lazy Pines and the surrounding area were now an emergency zone under an isolation/quarantine order. On top of that, the National Guard had been deployed to keep order in said emergency zone. It was stoking a hell of a lot of paranoia online, and Gage's puns weren't helping.

Horsepocalypse my ass.

The other thing of note that the news brought about, was that this entire mess had been given an unofficial name: Equine Transformation Syndrome, or ETS for short. That, and people inside the ETS quarantine zone was being instructed to go to shelters the government was setting up. Nothing was said about potential spread outside the area, however. It likely meant that the government wasn't trying to create any more panic.

"Panic leads to mistakes, and mistakes cost lives," was what she had offered after all that was revealed. "One panicked idiot with a gun is all it takes."

Jacen wanted to disagree with the voice on principal, but she'd only been partially wrong. While it was true that it'd take only one panicked idiot, even without a gun, to cost someone's life. Was a gun more likely in his homeland? Sure. Was it the only way to tragedy? Not by a long shot. It wouldn't even take a knife. Just one mob of angry people, panicked and scared that they might be next, and an entire town or city could be plunged into anarchy. Just a flip of the coin, really... Heads or tails, the world gets turned upside down.

That night, he decided he should take a sleep aid. As much as he might have liked to have a repeat of his digital adventures as a mute psychopath with a pathological vendetta against pots and pig-men, it was more important that he get some decent sleep. He'd probably have plenty of time to kill while this strange transformation ravaged his system after all. Plus, the sleep would help ensure his shitty immune system didn't give out and kill him.

As he did every night, he stepped out onto his patio with a cigarette. Unfortunately, there was some sleet coming down at a bad angle, so the only place he could really light up was up against the wall that separated his patio from the Karen next door's patio. Even as he lit up, he could hear Karen shouting at someone over the phone again, but couldn't make out anything concrete beyond the fact that she was clearly talking about Equine Transformation Syndrome. It was none of his business, though. He was pretty sure he'd not been in contact with her since before he left for Vegas.

Jacen cringed slightly as he sat there. The smell of cigarette smoke had never bothered him before. When his parents were still alive, they'd been smokers themselves, so he'd been used to the smell even before he picked up the habit. Yet just like he'd noticed yesterday with the smell of that beef stock, he was becoming a lot more sensitive to smells. It might've been the stress, his imagination, or it might even have been some sign that his senses were changing like the rest of him. He simply didn't know, and it bothered him.

As he stared out into the frozen water droplets pelleting the city, illuminated by the street lights down below, the phone in his pocket chirped. That in and of itself wasn't unusual. What was was that it was the notification sound he'd assigned to his SMS app, rather than the online app he usually used. Very few had his number, and those that did rarely texted him without good reason.

Sure enough, when Jacen removed the phone from his pocket and turned on its display, he saw a text message from Peter Harlowe. "U need 2 call Gage, ASAP. He's freaking the fuck out!"

As he unlocked the screen, he held down the home-screen button for a few seconds, and then said aloud, "Call Gage Mitchell's home phone." As he took a drag from his cigarette, he thought back to the discussion with his friend yesterday, about how Gage had just gotten over the flu that Jacen had passed on to him, he imagined that his friend was finally beginning to freak out about the news. If his friend was, he determined as the phone rang, then he could predict exactly what was coming.

The ringing stopped, but was almost immediately replaced by slurred yelling. "You son of a bitch, how could you do this to me!?" It didn't even phase him. Gage had a flair for the dramatic, and a tendency to overreact, even before his transition, so Jacen was used to taking a bit of abuse when his friend was out of sorts. "What did I ever do to you, Jacen!? You were like the brother I needed, even when my real brother was useless and unsupportive!"

Oof, he thought as he listened to his friend spiral off into an incoherent rant. He proceeded to up all sorts of things from the past. The that guy in high school who somehow found out about Jacen's hysterectomy and spread it around to everyone? Gage knocked him out. How he'd been there for Gage when he came out not just as a man, but gay as well... Even the time a distraught Gage got into his father's Everclear and ended up begging Jacen to 'help him with his V-card' after his mother said she wouldn't even consider supporting his transition if he didn't at least try being a woman. He'd rightly refused, but let his friend vent. This ETS shit's really got his hackles up if he's drinking and bringing up Keith and that cow.

"Right, time out," he commanded with enough force in his voice that his friend actually stopped. He didn't often raise his voice, after all. "I want you to take a deep breath, hold for ten, and then breathe out slowly through your nose. Do that until you feel you're ready to talk to me and not just at me."

It took the better part of a minute, listening to his friend breathing loudly into his phone, before his friend spoke again. "Sorry, man," his friend murmured in a sheepish tone. "It's been hard seeing what's going on, and hearing what you're going through. I think I had a bit too much to drink."

Clearly, he thought, although he refrained from actually voicing it. Besides, it tracked well enough. Even if he wasn't supposed to with some of his medications, it was still Gage's coping mechanism. "So I take it this is about ETS?"

"Mmmhmm," his friend hummed. Based on the degree of freak-out, he was probably not far from passing out, but in the off chance that he wasn't, Jacen would rather talk his friend down his from whatever crisis had provoked this. "You're gonna think I'm being stupid, but I'm scared. I spent all this time becoming who I was supposed to be, and if I did catch it from you, that means I'm gonna turn into a horse too..." There was a slight sniffle and a tremor to his voice. "I don't wanna be dumb animal... I don't wanna turn into a girl horse, get pregnant, and have foals..."

It was hardly a stupid concern, from where Jacen stood. He knew how much transitioning had meant for Gage—how important it was putting Abigail away for good. The fact of the matter was that nobody had any idea how this sickness even worked. If it just went off of the victim's DNA, and the body was completely reformed, it was almost a guarantee that Gage would become a mare. It'd be devastating for him.

He felt a great measure of guilt in telling his friend what he presumed to be a lie—to tell his friend what he thought he wanted to hear—but he didn't know what else to do. "You won't be a mare, man," Jacen stated in a firm voice. "You wanna know why? 'cause you're a big gay man, and that means you're gonna be a big gay stallion! The biggest! All the other stallions are gonna look at you and feel completely inadequate 'cause of your big-ass balls an pendulous horse schlong." What in the fuck are these words coming out of my mouth? "Maybe some day you might want foals, but you aren't gonna bear them. No... You'll find a mare you trust, who trusts you, and you're gonna put them foals in her. You understand me?"

For a minute of long silence, neither spoke. Gage was probably in shock with the sheer absurdity of what his ears had been subjected to. Meanwhile, Jacen was in awe of the fact that he managed to get that absurd ramble without laughing. That silence extended another minute longer, and then Gage burst into raucous laughter. Jacen joined in, and before long they both were deep in hysterics together. He wasn't even entirely sure it was actually that funny and not just completely unhinged.

"Dude, what in the absolute fuck was that?" a breathless Gage finally asked. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Maybe," Jacen replied with a snicker. "Did it help you find yours?"

"Yeah... I'm still scared, but I think I get what you were trying to tell me." That's good, because I lost the thread almost immediately. "You want me to believe in myself and hold onto hope, right?

"Something like that." It occurred to him that, at some point—either during his rant or the insane laughter that followed—he'd dropped his lit cigarette into the accumulating slush on the patio. He would have thought there would be some drive would be there to replace it and smoke it to completion, given his nicotine dependence, but it simply wasn't there. "You good?"

"Yeah."

He leaned down and picked up the fallen cigarette, and put it in the ashtray on his patio table. "Get some sleep, and stop drinking when you're on antidepressants."

Gage gave a tired, "Yeah, yeah," and then hung up, leaving Jacen in silence on his patio. He typed out a quick text to Pete asking him to check in on Gage tomorrow. Sure, they might be locked down, but it felt important that Gage see a friendly face, especially after that. The cops were probably too busy with this whole ETS shit to care if a friend wanted a wellness check done on someone. He was just glad that the two lived close enough that it was possible.

With a tired sigh, he made his way over to his patio door. His reflection was distorted, and he realised he was once again seeing a young woman where he should've been. Oddly enough, she was beginning to match his appearance, as if it was the most natural thing for a hallucination to catch ETS too. Her long hair was now grey and white like his, and her mismatched purple and pink eyes glinted with mischief. She also matched his movements as he reached for the door. A smile crossed her gaunt face when he found his arm frozen as he closed his hand on the handle. It was as though a hand had gripped him tightly by the wrist.

"Gage has every right to be scared, you know," she said in an almost conversational tone. It wasn't mocking, or even aggressive like it usually was. It was just spoken as a matter of fact. "He's not the only one... What's this going to do to you—to us—I wonder? Maybe my genes will be dominant, and you'll be able to relate even better with our friend."

He clenched his jaw and hissed out, "You're not my sister." He shut his eyes and unclenched his jaw. "You never were. You're just a symptom of the mental illness I've been struggling with for half my life... one that built upon grief and an imaginary friend I had as a child." When he opened his eyes, she was gone and the feeling of being touched. I almost wish I did have a living sister, just so you'd go away.

When he finally forced open the door, he heard her whisper, "Maybe I'm not her, but I'm still a part of you. Like it or not."

The dreamless sleep granted to him by the sleep aid was a blessing after the encounter the previous night. Although Sunday morning's dream had been free of her presence, she definitely would've been back last night. Just the fact that the hallucinations were progressing and becoming more involved was a sign that he should be calling Pharmasave to prep a certain prescription. It'd been so long since he'd needed an anti-psychotic to manage her that the bottle in his cupboard expired three months ago. Stressing out about ETS had clearly been hindering his ability to focus on his usual grounding techniques.

So instead of another dream visitation, he simply went to sleep on his side in his bed, and woke up face-down on the floor at ten the next morning, still wrapped around his pillow. As he came out of it, he could tell something was up. The aching tailbone that had plagued him the entirety of yesterday was replaced by a tightness in the back of his pyjama bottoms. It was fortunate that he'd been keeping up with the accounts accounts from Lazy Pines over the last few days, because knowing that others were going through this same chaotic mess was helping to keep him from panicking.

If not for the desperate need to caffeinate, he might even have torn off his pants to investigate. The closest he got was adjusting his pants after a trip to the bathroom, so that his still-growing tail was free. He never once looked though, because he was honestly afraid to with the headache he had. While he would have to confront it eventually, it didn't have to be that moment.

During his late-morning tea, he browsed the social media and fidgeted with his Morgan dollar. There were all sorts of posts from people in Lazy Pines popping up, relating their situations. Many were in shelters, and a lot of them had been segregated from their families. Splitting up families by sexes... If we're turning into animals, I understand, but it's still cruel. These ponies should be together, not apart.

If he had any family nearby, he might've even reached out himself. The extra emotional support would've made this whole situation so much more bearable. Chatting or calling Gage and Pete were as close as he could get, however; his parents perished in a plane crash shortly before he immigrated to Canada. His paternal grandparents had both lost their lives to cancer, while his hyper-religious maternal grandparents broke contact with his mother after they heard that he was 'an abomination unto god'. Were they even still alive? There were no other uncles, aunts, or cousins, which left him with his long-distance brotherhood.

Just as he put the kettle on for a second cup, there came a knock at the apartment door. It was unexpected enough that he fumbled his good luck token. He was frozen as he watched it roll straight across the living room floor. To his consternation, it rolled straight into the floor vent, plinking loudly off into the duct-work. As his good luck token and memento from his father disappeared into the void, it felt to him as though someone had just stepped over his grave. "Fuck."

"Jacen? Are you there?" came a familiar voice, drawing his attention back to the door. "It's Dr. Weintraub."

Rushing over to the door, he put his eye to the peephole. Sure enough, that was his physician standing outside the door. For some reason, he didn't feel the surprise he ought to have. After all, she'd showed up at his door completely unannounced. If anything, he welcomed it.

It wasn't just the fact that he was interested to see what she had to say, although that had a major hand in it. It was the first direct human contact he'd had since he'd seen her on Friday. The InstaCart delivery and the pizza he'd paid ahead of time with explicit instructions to leave the items outside his door specifically so he could limit further spread if he was contagious. He also didn't want to cause a panic or for it to get out that he had ETS.

That he was excited struck him as odd. Despite his 'profession', he was something of a homebody and relatively independent outside of specific settings, instead letting others come to him on their own terms. The drive to be around others just for the sake of it had never been there prior. Was it the fact that he was having something of a mental crisis and a health crisis all at once? Or was it something else?

He opened the door and stepped back to allow her in. "Morning, Doc. C'mon in," he said with smile. It'd been snowing when he got up, but she looked a bit too bundled up—heavy winter coat, boots, two scarves and a tuque. The poor woman looked so warm that even her glasses were steaming up. But for a very official looking bag, he might've even assumed this was a casual visit. "Sorry about the mess, but I wasn't expecting any guests. I'd ask what provoked this unexpected house-call, but I think we both know the answer."

Jacen watched as she removed her coat, hat, boots, and scarves, only to see that she was wearing a surgical mask beneath. "Tea?" he offered, shutting the door and slipping past. In the kitchenette the kettle had begun to whistle. He quickly turned the cooktop off and opened a cupboard to fetch a teabag. Turning his head back to her, he added, "I also have coffee, but it's instant."

She looked somewhat stunned, but her eyes seemed to be flicking from his face town to his lower back—to his new tail. "Coffee's fine, thank you," Dr. Weintraub replied with a soft cough, quickly turning her gaze away. The 'mess' must have some sort of joke, because she couldn't see so much as a hint of dust. Except for a pizza box on the counter, a crooked blue-bin that might've held four empty beer cans, and a few strands of his new grey and white hair here and there, the place was immaculate. "Black, no sugar."

He nodded and got to fixing up drinks. "Just take a seat, and then we can talk about ETS," he instructed, gesturing to the living room area. "Take the armchair or the love seat if it's not too much trouble; sitting on this damn tail is already a complete pain, and I can stretch myself out on the sofa."

Tara did as he asked, walking into the living room and taking a seat. It was hard not to notice the big screen mounted above an electric fireplace, its screen full of posts about Lazy Pines and ETS. She was about to comment on the matter when he spoke up. "Jaina, TV off."

There was a soft, "Sure thing, Jacen," from the device on the counter, and then the TV cut out. "Anything else?"

He was making his way over to the living room with a slice of pizza on a plate, and two mugs, one with tea, and one with black coffee. "Unless something new blows up about ETS, I don't want to be disturbed," he answered, placing the mug of coffee on a coaster on the table before the doctor. Once he set his plate and own mug down, he laid out on his side on the sofa. "I'm kinda surprised you came by, Doc—especially now that I get a better look at you; if I didn't know better, I'd say you just came down with the flu."

Dr. Weintraub did not look enthused by his comment. "I have," she admitted in a disgruntled voice, putting the mask into her bag before she picked up the mug. "I would be home resting if not for the fine mess you've gotten yourself—and me in turn—caught up in. In fact, once I'm done here, that's exactly what I intend on doing."

A fresh bubble of guilt rose in the pit of his stomach. He had no reason to think he was actually somehow responsible for her getting the flu, but the fact that she was here when she should be taking as many sick days as she needed bothered him. Others would be impacted by her absence, and if she was sick longer because she was here instead of home...

Fixing him with a level stare, the doctor blew some of the steam from her coffee. "I'm actually impressed that we were able to get any information out of the Colorado Department of Health." The corner of her mouth turned up. "Not that I had any doubts at this point, but we've been able to definitively confirm that you have ETS."

As he reached for his mug of tea with a snort of amusement, the tail that he had yet to acknowledge flicked unexpectedly. The sudden movement of the alien appendage startled him, and he ended up falling between the coffee table and the couch. "So what's that mean for me?" he asked, as he climbed back onto the couch with an aura of embarrassment. The second time around, he didn't cause a scene while reaching for his tea. "The feds coming to lock me away in a lab to run tests on me?"

She shook her head, and watched as he took a bite of the pizza slice. "At the moment, you're safe," she said, setting her mug down on the coaster. "Public Health is in the process of setting up a shelter for other ETS patients in this region, but the provincial governments are stonewalling. Nobody wants it in their back yard."

Was he supposed to feel reassured by the implication that he wasn't the only one in the region? In a way, he was. It shouldn't have delighted him in the least that others in the region were suffering the same transformation as him, but to know that there were others sharing the same pain as him... it inspired a warped feeling of kinship. That doesn't seem right.

"She said in this region," came a helpful whisper from the direction of the love seat. "We're not the only ones with ETS."

As Jacen sipped at his tea and casually looked over to the smaller sofa, it occurred to him that the voice was—regrettably—correct. She was there, draped over the back of the love seat, once again his female mirror, giving him a smirk as she basked in the victory of being right. Whether Doctor intended to or not, she had effectively told him that there were cases in the other provinces. I'd guess the cities of Vancouver and Toronto might be hardest hit.

"Would you consent to an examination while I am here?" she asked as they both finished their beverages. Dr. Weintraub wasted no time fetching what looked to be a clipboard and pen from her bag. A stethoscope quickly followed. "Nova Scotia Health Authority is currently taking a wait-and-see given your willingness to isolate, but there's something nagging at me, and I'd like to confirm."

Upon giving an affirmative, she instructed him to draw the curtains, and strip down to his boxers. When he removed the band tee he'd fallen asleep in, both of them were startled by something neither of them had expected. Both of his nipples looked out of place—slightly lower than normal. As if that wasn't unusual enough, the left one had drifted ever so slightly rightward.

She quickly scribbled something down on her clipboard, and then began taking a closer look at his face. "Have you noticed any vision changes, particularly in your right eye?" she asked. When he shook his head, she jotted something down. Did I miss something when I was looking in the mirror last night? "Other than your discoloured eyes and the pupillary change—" THE WHAT!? "—there's something off about your overall facial structure. You're also shorter, by about ten centimetres if I had to estimate."

It suddenly felt like the room was several degrees colder. How could I not have noticed I'm getting shorter!? He barely noticed as she listened to his heartbeat. I'm supposed to be good at picking up on patterns and reading people. How could I not even notice something like being four inches shorter? The doctor's face grew grim as she jotted something else down.

"Jacen, chill the fuck out," said his unwanted head-guest from her spot across the love seat. It was odd, but she actually looked concerned for a change—scared, even. "You're gonna have a panic attack if you keep this up."

AND WHY SHOULDN'T I? He nearly shouted his response, but he caught himself before he could scare the life out of Tara. Instead he settled for thinking very loudly at the manifestation. I'M TURNING INTO A FUCKING HORSE!

"I need to check your breathing, and then check on your tail," she said, placing the stethoscope to his back. Once she'd run him through the breathing necessary for the test, her face grew hard to read. There was yet more writing on the clipboard. "I apologise ahead of time if handling it is uncomfortable. I just need to verify one more thing and then I'll be out of your hair."

When he felt her touch to either side of his tail, he nearly jumped. It felt so, so wrong. How was it possible that she was touching both sides and yet not? The closest comparison he could come up with was the 'dead finger' sensory illusion his Mom had shown him when he was a boy. When it finally felt like she actually was fully touching either side, there was a gasp from the doctor.

"What the fuck?" Tara whispered to herself as she wrote down her final notes and placed the clipboard on her bag. The fact that she'd actually said it loud enough for him to hear was kind of chilling. Dr. Weintraub was typically pretty unflappable, but that was definitely a shocked utterance if he'd ever heard one.

"What's the rub, Doc?" asked Jacen as she took off her glasses and rubbed at her eyes. "You're kinda freaking me out."

It took the woman a few moments to compose herself, during which she braced herself against the side of the armchair. "I think you should take a seat before I share my findings with you, Mr. Cadlow," she said in a shaky voice. "There's no easy way to say this..."

He crossed his arms and remained standing between the coffee table and the sofa. In a shaky voice, he demanded, "Just tell me."

With a sigh, Dr. Weintraub retrieved her clipboard. "There are abnormalities in your heart and your breathing," she explained. "While only faint right now, there is a clear second heartbeat. Were you a sexually active young woman, congratulations might have been in order. That shouldn't be physically possible, though, but neither should this entire transformation." Tapping her notes with her knuckles, she shook her head. "Without imaging, I can only guess that something similar is happening to your lungs. There's slight changes in your torso shape that may be to account for this."

Two hearts? Blood pressure might explain those headaches at least, he thought, looking up at the ceiling. Four lungs though? What the actual fuck?

"As for your tail..." She trailed off, watching him with a critical eye. "You have two of them. Both of them are neatly partitioned to match the split in your hair. I hypothesise that—"

A chime from Jaina's counter-top node interrupted the doctor. "There has been a spike in activity regarding the ETS topic, and new data has become available," the device said in its calming voice. "Shall I put it on the TV?"

It felt like a hand clamped down on his shoulder. "Don't do it." There was alarm in her voice. Why did she suddenly care now of all times. "Take some time to calm down! Please!"

"Do it," he announced as he heaved a heavy sigh.

With a forceful jerk that dispelled the touch on his shoulder, he turned to regard the screen. So too did Tara. On the screen, were ETS victims—colourful eyes and hair on full display—but there were also oddities about them. There was a woman with a horn on her forehead, while someone looked to have featherless wings on their shoulders. One even looked she had bat-like wing traits. It was like something out of high fantasy. Unicorn... Pegasus... Demon?

In a very small voice, he began, "What is happening to every p—" Whatever he'd intended to say, the words never came. The breath wasn't there, as he hadn't actually taken a breath in what felt like an eternity. Blinking pinpoints were swimming in his vision, and from what sounded like very far away, someone was calling his name.

"Jacen!"

When had he fallen down? He couldn't remember. One moment, he was looking at the wings and horns on the TV screen, and then the next, he was staring up at the ceiling from the floor. Every single cell in his body vibrated like a struck tuning fork, and nothing really seemed to want to work properly. Tara appeared in his field of vision soon after, and she was saying something, but he couldn't figure it out.

When she touched the back of his head, her fingers came back bloody. That didn't seem right... It was also getting hard for him to keep his eyes open. The doctor seemed to notice as well, because suddenly there was a phone in her hand. Still, he couldn't understand what she was saying. The only thing he could clearly make out was the sound of a girl crying. Then, his eyes closed.

Day 5: Lockdown

Two people stood in front of the viewing window, looking in at the room's sole occupant. One was a doctor, while the other was a financial exec from the hospital's board of directors. Neither of them was particularly pleased to see the patient lying there, but for entirely different reasons. That reason had nothing to do with the fact the patient was ill.

For Dr. Avery Downey, it was a feeling of unease at having an Equine Transformation Syndrome victim in 'his' hospital. It was bad enough that people were being forced to undergo horrific mutations by this 'virus'. The patient napping in the bed on the other side of the glass had been to the quarantine zone in Colorado before anyone had even discovered the existence of ETS, and had infected an unknown number of people. Maybe the worst part was that nobody could determine the transmission vector, or what personal protective equipment was even effective in preventing it.

The exec, on the other hand, was more upset by the fact that an entire ward had been closed down in order to quarantine the patient. She wasn't so much concerned by that other patients may not receive the care they need, so much as she was with the numbers. Beds not filled with patients meant that less money was coming in from health insurance agencies or incidentals.

Given that word had gotten out that Federal Bureau of Investigations had now involved itself in the situation down in Colorado, she also didn't fancy keeping the man around. What if he was somehow responsible? If it turned out the man was some kind of bioterrorist—maybe even a victim of his own horrific plan—and word got out, the press would have a field day. An already strained healthcare system would be stressed past the limit if scared people started avoiding the hospital in favour of care in Dartmouth, or even in other municipalities.

"Dr. Downey, can I really do nothing to convince you to allow us to contact the Public Health Authority or Health Canada and tell them to take this man off our hands?" she asked in a hushed voice. "That... man belongs in a laboratory, not occupying an entire ward, putting our patients and staff at risk!"

He shook his head slowly, looking from her back down to the manilla folder. "You know why I can't do that, Taylor," Avery replied, thrusting the folder into her hands. "A person doesn't just start growing redundant organs, and whatever this disease is doing to him, it's outside the transformative behaviour in the Front Range cases."

While the he turned to observe as a nurse entered the room with an astonishingly large tray of food, Taylor Hendrickson opened up the folder and began reading. The man was Jacen Cadlow, an american immigrant who'd been living here in Halifax for several years now. Although he was brought in for a head injury caused during a vasovagal syncope-related fall, his family doctor—who had been performing a home visit specifically due to her self-quarantined patient having ETS—requested X-rays and MRIs due to bone distortions that had not been present during his visit to her office on Friday, in addition to the aforementioned redundant heart.

The exec was admittedly unqualified to read the attached MRI or X-Ray films, but there was an attached summary of what the imaging had determined. It was clear as day that he now possessed a heart in both the left and right side of his chest cavity, and there was a partially developed respiratory system at the time of imaging. His original two lungs appeared to be losing mass to make room, as well as shifting to the left side of the cavity. On top of that, bones all over his body were shifting and elongating in ways that should not have been possible at the rate observed.

There were also indicators that Mr. Cadlow's cranium was growing wider. Looking in through the window, she couldn't deny that it almost appeared as though someone had taken hold of his head in a photo-editor and begun stretching it out slowly. There were small masses growing behind the left and right eye inside the sockets. They didn't seem to be cancerous, but if it was following the same pattern as the rest of his body, he might even end up with four eyes.

It was a small wonder that, with everything happening to his body, he didn't appear to be in any pain. How long can that keep up though? It seemed as though his body were prepping to some unholy equivalent of cellular division. What about when the nervous system is affected?

Nausea began to bubble up inside her as she placed the folder back into his dark hands. "What's happening to him is inhuman, and I can't even begin to imagine what this is doing to his psyche," Avery noted as he tucked the folder under his arm. With his other hand, he gestured toward the man whose mismatched eyes and the two-tone hair didn't seem right on a human. "If what happens to his body is even remotely close to what we think is happening, he's probably going to look like some Lovecraftian horror for a time."

Ms. Hendrickson nodded, wishing he hadn't phrased it in that way. "I can see how keeping him here might be for his benefit then," she murmured as she turned away. "The public is already watching the situation south of the border with worry. If they saw him, especially if he ends up looking like something out of John Carpenter's the Thing, the public's going to panic."

"It's a bit late for that," came the voice of a woman behind them. There stood a woman in glasses, a white lab coat, dark clothes, and a surgical mask. Nearby stood one of the other nurses assigned to the locked-down ward. The exec didn't recognise the woman, and she wasn't wearing a lanyard denoting her as staff. It didn't seem as though her presence was unexpected to Avery, however. "Conspiracy theories about Lazy Pines, the end of the world, and even bioterrorism have been making the rounds all day online. If that wasn't bad enough, my clinic and many others are getting swamped with patients coming down with the flu." This was punctuated by a hard cough. "Even the ones who already had the seasonal variant."

Avery passed the yet-to-be-named doctor the folder and turned back to Taylor. "This is Dr. Tara Weintraub," he explained. "That's her patient in there. It's thanks to her efforts that we even have any of the limited information on ETS." He leaned closer to the executive and whispered, "She seems convinced that she might already be infected with the Virus, and is 'borrowing' the room next to his."

Jacen was absolutely sick of this virus. It was bad enough that he had to sit very carefully so as not to pinch either of his fluffy soft tails, but it was as though he'd traded one pain for another. His right shoulder was starting to ache, and knowing what he knew from the news, it sounded like he was on his way to becoming a one-winged angel. If only the long white hair had taken on both sides of his head, he could have made a Sephiroth joke.

It wouldn't have been so awful if he could figure out how to control both of the new appendages. Instead, he was left to manhandle them to either side any time he got up to use the room's attached toilet, or when he got back onto the bed. It was incredibly frustrating for him, and he got the distinct impression that his bodily autonomy was slowly being taken away by the virus.

That made him feel helpless, even more than being trapped in this hospital room. Getting taken to the hospital after hitting his head like he did at least made sense, but as he lie there, recovering from his concussion it occurred to him that they weren't going to allow him to leave. That was only confirmed last night by the nurse that brought him dinner and checked in with him. It was made clear that any attempts to leave would end with police involvement.

Just as well that he was here. Since hitting his head yesterday, his headaches and their frequency had only intensified. They'd given him some prescription strength ibuprofen this morning, but it'd done nothing for the lingering dizziness and vertigo. If anything, as the day had progressed, it'd only gotten worse, what with the buzz of tinnitus and an unusual prickling sensation in my ears.

At least he wasn't left to stew in complete boredom. His physician had been kind enough to collect a bunch of his belongings before locking up his place. His phone and charger, his wallet, and even a few books from his bookshelf. He'd have liked it better if she had grabbed something from a shelf other than the one holding the collection of Star Wars trade paperbacks he inherited from his parents. The only other book she'd managed to grab was a book on tarot, something he'd gotten at a friend's suggestion not too long ago, still in its factory wrapping. Still, it was better than nothing. What better way to get to know some of the legacy of my namesake than being stuck in a room with the books and little else to do?

Then there was the matter of his hitherto unwanted companion. Up until now, he'd seen her as an antagonistic detriment to his own mental well-being. She had always been negative whenever he ended up in a bad enough place for her to show up. Now that he had time to reflect—she'd surprisingly been giving him a fair bit of space, even if she continued to lurk—he was forced to admit that she wasn't entirely malicious.

Nearly everything she ever said could technically be traced back to his own self-doubts, conscious or not. The negativity towards his self-destructive tendencies—the smoking, the alcohol, riding a motorbike... Didn't all that come from the self-preservation instincts that his depression made easy to ignore? And my survivor's guilt is literally projected on her... that's why she acts like she thinks she's my sister, right? Up until now, he just didn't want to accept what she represented, instead seeing her as the enemy.

At this realisation, Jacen cast a glance from Zahn's Heir to the Empire, which he'd gotten a quarter of the way through, to the room's observation window. Neither Dr. Downey nor the woman from earlier, or any of the nurses seemed to be watching at the moment, so he looked over to the chair. It was where his hallucinatory doppelganger had been sitting quietly... just watching. For whatever reason, she'd also started sporting a hospital gown.

"Maybe it's these painkillers, the concussion, or something," he commented before turning back to the book, "but I think I'm actually able to make sense of you." As much as he hated to admit it, it was quite the page-turner, and Pete would no doubt be ecstatic to hear he'd given in to the 'dark side', so to speak. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

That drew a giggle from her. "Like you'd have listened if I said, 'Hey, I'm a manifestation of your guilt and suppressed will to live; do you wanna talk out your problems?'" She got up and started pacing around the room. "You didn't exactly trust me when I started showing up, and I can't exactly blame you." When the quasi-doppelganger turned to look out the window, he caught a flash of guilt in her reflection. "Up until these last few days, I was the worst... Some of that's your own subconscious response to me, but..."

Her presence seemed momentarily indistinct, as if staying were somehow a strain on her. The silence that stretched out gave him time to think. He slipped his mother's silk bookmark—he'd found it tucked in the front when he first opened it—between the page he'd left off and the one he'd yet to read, and then struggled to his feet. It took a moment to brace himself against the window so that he wouldn't fall if vertigo hit, but the view was worth it.

Now that he had the time to think about it, even on Friday she'd been somewhat different, with her actually-helpful suggestion about the helmet. The next morning, in the recurring nightmare where he relived the day he found out about his twin, she'd been trying to engage him and change things. Sunday night, she seemed more like she just wanted to talk... Then, yesterday, that was actual concern for his well-being.

It didn't make any sense to him. How was it even possible that she was more lucid and distinct now than ever before? How could she be changing so quickly that it was growing hard to recognise her? For that matter, he wasn't even sure how he'd gotten into such a receptive state of mind to start listening to her. Could painkillers or a concussion really have done all of that on its own?

"Dr. Sato once told us... no, told you that the unconscious mind handles a lot of things you aren't consciously aware of," she murmured beside him. "Do you remember?"

Jacen nodded. Autonomic function, subliminal perception, and automatic reactions were just a few of the things it dealt with. Dreams were another big thing, and the man had gone so far as to note that things we may be unconsciously aware of could influence dreams. There were even trains of thought that suggested that hallucinations themselves were unconscious thought bridging into the waking world.

"How many things are happening that you're not even aware of?" she finally asked as she turned to face him. There was fear in her eyes, and slit pupil in her pink eye was just as wide as her purple eye. "What is this doing to your brain? Besides me, can you think of anything unusual over the last few days?"

"Just an errant word that's popped up in my thoughts once or twice: 'pony'." He admitted. It still struck him as odd when he thought about it, but he had to admit that it seemed to fit with the amount of height he was losing. Weirder still was how this only served to agitate his hallucinatory companion. "What?"

Without any given explanation, she vanished, leaving Jacen alone at the window. It appeared as though, it was getting a lot busier down in the hospital parking lot— like a bunch of people were coming in. One or two people looked up, and for a second he thought they might have seen him, but if they did, there was no pointing or phones taking pictures. Makes me glad I was able to nab a slot with Dr. Weintraub when I did.

As he returned to the patient bed provided to him, he wondered what that was about. Her words echoed in his mind as he opened his book to the bookmark. What is this doing to your brain? It occurred to him that—until now—he'd only ever been concerned about the physical aspect of this transformation. If he was becoming an animal, wouldn't that begin affecting is intellect? That'd surely happen sooner rather than later, right?

Yet, as he thought about it, he didn't feel any less capable. At most, maybe his emotions might be out of whack, but that could've been attributable to the stress. Certainly, fear and anxiety were becoming much harder to reign in, as yesterday's panic attack had demonstrated. Similarly, he'd been obnoxiously rude to the point that he made a nurse cry when brought him a meal with meat in it—not realising he was vegetarian—only to become upset with himself with his actions later.

It's not right to make somepony cry like that just because you're stressed out, he thought darkly. Mom raised you better than that. A chill ran down his spine as he replayed that thought in his head. Some... pony? Where does that even come from? He was afflicted with what was being labelled Equine Transformation Syndrome, and the word pony just happened to start popping up in his thoughts—that hardly seemed like a coincidence.

He resolved to ask Dr. Downey about the MRI they'd taken and potential changes to his brain. Maybe Tara, too, if she was up to discussing. It seemed like despite her efforts to keep strong, the flu was starting to knock her flat on her ass. It might be better to let her rest. She'd visited after lunch, and had even discussed some of what they found—though clearly not all of it—before retiring to the room next to his.

That was another thing. The doctors had told him some of what they'd found, but they weren't telling him nearly everything. They said they found masses growing behind his eyes, that they weren't cancerous, but not what they were. Not only that, but in regards to what Dr. Weintraub had found yesterday, this Downey fellow simply refused comment. It didn't fill him with the least bit of confidence.

He may have had a concussion and this virus potentially eating away his mind, but he wasn't an idiot. As biologically impossible as it seemed—not that any of this made any biological sense to begin with—his body was generating redundant organs, and he had grown two tails. Unless they were going to be put to use, it wouldn't make any sense. His body was clearly getting ready to split down the middle, whether they'd admit it or not.

"Are they hoping to keep me from panicking by keeping quiet?" he wondered aloud as he looked down at the book in his hands. He'd gotten so lost in thought that he'd probably read the same line twenty or so times without any understanding of the words. "It certainly isn't fucking working."

With a sigh, Jacen tossed the novel back onto the small table the hospital staff had provided. What he needed was something to focus on—something other than a novel or instant messaging. The tarot book sitting on the table seemed to beckon him. It was kinda funny, in a sense. Rather than Gage, who was always into magic, fantasy, and witch-y stuff, it'd been sci-fi fanatic Pete who'd suggested he look into it as a means of introspection. Other stuff like that was just 'new age crap' to Pete, but he swore by tarot readings.

"I bet with your skill at cards, you could actually see the future," his friend had joked before suggesting the book sitting on that table. It even came packaged with a 78-card deck in a neat little deck box. A bit of insight definitely couldn't hurt right about now.

Seeing as none of the nurses or doctors were around, and Dr. Weintraub was resting in the next room, it wouldn't hurt for him to give it a read. So it was, he unwrapped the book and paged through the basic concepts. Not long after, he moved on to the sorts of spreads, their general purposes, and even potential questions one should be asking themselves beforehand. It was kind of fascinating, but he wasn't one hundred percent sure he bought into it.

A simple one-card draw can help familiarise one with their deck over time, while allowing one to focus on the deeper meanings of the cards. That was effectively what it boiled down to. Just to get something to reflect on, ask a question, draw the card, and read up on the meaning, he thought as he removed the cards from the box. As he shuffled them, even taking the time to switch up the orientations, he thought about what he wanted to ask the cards.

"What should I know about the situation I'm in?" he whispered aloud. With that, he set the deck down on the table and drew. It was one of the numbered, named cards of the Major Arcana, VII - The Chariot, upside down. He flipped through the book to the page dedicated to the Chariot and read. As he read, he found himself frowning. "So upright, the card would represent success, ambition, willpower, focus, self discipline or control. It says the inverted card speaks to forcefulness, aggression, powerlessness, obstacles, or a lack of control or direction."

He bit his lip as he thought about this. The concept of a cold read in fortune telling was not unknown to him, so to a certain extent reflecting on the meaning and how it related to his question was just a cold read on himself, right? Still, he couldn't deny that ETS had filled his life with unknown obstacles, and had effectively robbed him of his self-determination; he had no power or direction here, and every little thing he did was but a struggle to wrest back control.

Yet, as he looked from the book back to the card in his hand, something in the back of his mind prickled—like something clicked into place. It could also serve as a warning. Aggression and forceful behaviour might interfere with the best potential outcomes. He needed to be mindful of himself and how he treated others.

"Ask the cards about ETS," came his companion's voice. He looked up and found he sitting cross-legged at the foot of the hospital bed, staring at him with a look of anxiety. "Try the three card spread the book suggested—the one about past, present, and future."

Jacen only nodded, shuffling the card back into the deck. "You know, it occurs to me that I never once gave you a name," he commented as he returned the deck to the table. He met her eyes as he drew three cards and lay them out face-down on the bedsheet between them, side-by-side. "I was convinced that giving you one would give you power... but at the same time, I'm tired of just thinking of you as she or her." He glanced down at the cards, and quickly added, "You ask the question."

The doppelganger folded her arms as she stared down at the spread. "Is someone responsible for ETS?" She then rubbed a hand through her hair. "I know Jaina is off the table," she noted, seemingly remembering that his digital assistant bore the name of his would-be sister. "You always treated me as something of a bad omen or straight up bad luck... like a sort of jinx. Why not call me that, instead?"

Unable to help himself, Jacen laughed. "You're definitely running off the same brain as me if you've got my self-deprecating humour," he replied. "Alright, Jinx. Let's see what the cards say."

As he turned over the first card, he felt a chill run down his spine. It wasn't that the card looked particularly ominous. Rather, it felt like he was doing something taboo... that he shouldn't be doing this. "Eight of Cups, upright..." Flicking through the book, he got to the card's meaning. "It speaks of transitions, abandonment, walking away, leaving everything behind, and a search for a greater truth." He frowned as he tried to make sense of this taboo feeling and the card associated with the past. "If someone was responsible, she must've turned her back on everything in the belief that she was doing something important."

That feeling got even worse as he turned the card associated with the presence over, and the newly named Jinx looked somewhat distressed. They were of the same brain, so of course she'd feel what he felt. "XI - Justice, inverted..." He didn't want to do this anymore. He simply couldn't explain the feeling, how every instinct was screaming for him to stop. Yet curiosity drove him forward to read of the card's meaning. "Inverted, it speaks of injustice, unfairness, corruption, dishonesty, and retribution..."

His headache was starting to get worse, like his head was caught in a vise. Why pony, why she? "She's deluded herself into the belief that what she's doing is anything but unjust... but she need beware vengeance." The words almost didn't seem to be entirely his own. "Mankind won't back down... it'll never back down."

It almost felt like his nose was starting to run, and Jinx was starting to look terrified. "Jace, stop! Something's wrong," she pleaded. "Stop it, please!" Yet even as she said this, his hand was already moving to the next card. When had his hand begun to shake? The card was turned over... XIII - Death.

That was when he noticed something off. There was red beginning to run down the front of his hospital gown. The feeling of wrongness snapped away... like he'd just slipped out of a trance. He brought his left hand up to his face and touched his chin. His fingers came away bloody, and the buzzing in his ears had become extra loud. "That's not good."

To his surprise, Jinx reached across the bed, somehow physically seized his free hand, and forced it over to the call button. He didn't even realise he'd squeezed the button until the nurses rushed in. One, took a look at his face, then met his eyes, and she paled before running back out of the room. He must've been quite a sight for her to do that.

The other—the one who'd brought him his lunch—stayed with him, helping him mop up the blood on his face with some tissues while asking him what had happened. Yet, as he try to explain, he found himself at a loss. A pall of exhaustion slowly slid across his mind, and rendered everything fuzzy. He'd been doing a tarot reading for something, and then... what? What had he been trying to divine, again?

The only thing he could explain was a feeling of utter wrongness, and that didn't seem to reassure the nurse at all. She quickly removed the cards and book from the bed, and then met the doctor and the other nurse at the door. He could tell that she was relaying what he said to Dr. Downey, but the only word he made out was seizure.

I thought seizures were all stiffness, tremors, and foaming at the mouth, he thought as the doctor came over to have a look. Why do I feel like I'm forgetting something important?

Author's Note

Fun fact: Seizures have been linked to some types of 'visionary religious experiences', and it has been suggested that one prophet in the old testament may have been epileptic.

At this point in Jacen's transformation, it highly unlikely that any sort of pony magic may actually be at play. In fact, it shouldn't manifest in any meaningful way for at least another five days (being on his seventh overall day of transformation). Human mysticism, however, has never really seemed to actually rely on magic, and there have been some instances in even my own life where I have experienced inexplicable moments of precognition. Who can really say what the human mind could tap into with the right (or very wrong) conditions?

But what do you think? Was his reading actually giving him insight, either by inadvertently tapping into the ETS magic inside of him or something else entirely, and somehow gleaning momentary insight towards Sunset? Or was he simply having a 'religious experience' as a result of the seizure?

Day 6: Horseplay (Isn't in the Cards)

After having a battery of fresh MRIs done on his head the previous night, Dr. Downey had an explanation for the seizure when he woke up. As if the redundant organs growing in and the second eye growing in each socket weren't enough of a dead giveaway, it was just more evidence of Jacen's body creating more of what wasn't already there. In this case, there was more brain-matter inside his head than should've been. As best as he could determine, something misfired and set off a seizure that was thankfully not too violent.

Of course, that whole explanation came after the discovery of the new ears sitting atop his head that morning. Honestly, he'd been expecting them to come in, but it was still unnerving to see. Much like his tails, he had no real control over their movements—and they were quite expressive—nor could he help but overhear things now. Even with their backs turned to him in the hall, he'd overheard the nurses voicing concerns that everyone in the hospital was gonna be infected by week's end.

It was also quite clear that this process was in part using up a lot of his body mass as fuel for the transformation. On Monday, Dr. Weintraub had estimated that he'd lost about four inches in height. It was closer to five by the time he'd gotten to the hospital. That had only increased over his last two sleeps. He'd gone from being six foot one to four foot eleven. It was just as well that he was stuck in a hospital gown, because none of he clothes would probably fit anymore.

That brought him to now. While was half past one in the afternoon where he was, it was maybe ten thirty in the morning down in Colorado. He'd arranged a video call with his friends last night before bed. Although he'd gleaned from texts over the last few days that despite Sunday night's meltdown, Gage was fine, it did concern him to be told that Peter was now locked down in the apartment with him. If Gage was infected, then surely Pete...

"Hey, Gage, Pete," he said, looking at the video feed of his two friends as the call began. He kept his phone angled just enough that his ears weren't visible. In the meantime, he observed at the two, fighting to remain in frame. To his surprise, he could see blue at the tips of Gage's blonde hair, but otherwise he was still just as he remembered. Peter, on the other hand, looked as though he was currently fighting off the flu as well. "How are you two?"

Peter just stared at him flatly as he pulled a fleece blanket tight around his shoulders and sneezed. "I hate being sick," he grumbled, before jabbing an elbow into his friend's ribs. "Did you seriously break this idiot out of his meltdown by telling him that he was gonna have a magnum horse dong?"

That got a cackle from Gage. "I wouldn't lie about that!" he exclaimed, thumping his fist against his chest. "I may be many things, but a liar isn't one of them."

Although it was amusing to Gage, Jacen wasn't really in a laughing mood; not with the massive headache he'd woken up with. "I hated hearing you like that," he murmured. He winced as he felt both pairs of ears atop his head fold back. "I don't even know where it came from, and I'm pretty sure somepony next door thinks I'm some sort of pervert... not that it matters now, I suppose."

He adjusted the angle of his phone so that the two on the other end of the call could see both pairs of ears. Following a muttered "Holy shit," the camera on the other end tumbled. Evidently, neither was expecting his unusual appearance and Gage had dropped his phone. When they were both back on screen, he could see the shock etched on their faces. That was soon followed by a whispered "I thought he was joking about the tails..."

It was about the reaction he'd expected. After the previous call, he'd not exactly kept his friends up-to-date with his transformation. Any time he'd talked to them via instant message, he tried to avoid the topic of ETS entirely. He wanted to keep his mind off what was happening—to pretend for just a little while longer that he was a normal person. This was the furthest thing from normalcy, though, and he could no longer run from that fact.

He proceeded to explain everything that he'd withheld up until now. How Jinx had resurfaced because of the stress, and how her presence had become more stable over the coming days. That got an alarmed squawk out of them both, given how he almost sounded relieved talking about making peace with her. They'd both known about her of course, as he'd confided in them the first times she appeared in his teens. It struck them as absurd as he'd end up trusting her, but Peter was quick to admit that—assuming she really wasn't malicious and could be trusted to stick around—she could probably do a better job of keeping him company than they could.

After talking about Jinx, he told them the horrifying truth about his transformation... how his body was slowly preparing itself to split. It still scared him to think that there were two hearts in his chest, alongside a second pair of lungs. Even spookier was the idea that he might sprout the extra eyes when his skull widened some more. Then he hammered it in by expressing how he'd had a seizure last night during a tarot reading... that a second brain was growing within his head.

To their credit, neither interrupted him while he spoke. Both looked ill, although with Peter it was hard to tell if that was the flu or if it was disgust at what his best friend was going through. They were too taken aback by the tears forming in Jacen's eyes; was this really the same man who wore a mask of steel to his parents' funeral?

"To be honest guys, the only things keeping me together are fleeting distractions, like this chat, books, or the tarot cards," he whimpered. "It's bad enough that I'm splitting into two different ponies, and I don't even know if either of them is going to be 'me' after all is said and done." It was an awkward movement, but his right hand darted around back to grab the edge of his hospital gown and pulled it around. Lifting it just high enough to show off the right side of his body, he angled the camera to show them what freaked him out the most: both of his nipples now clearly on the right side of his body, closer to the bottom of his rib cage than several days go. "Part of me isn't even gonna be male much longer."

As he let the gown fall back down, his friends both went pale. "Dude, what the fuck," was all Peter could manage. "How exactly did 'wandering nipples' lead you to the conclusion that half of you is gonna be a girl?"

Surprisingly, before Jacen could mention all the research he'd been doing, how he'd been keeping an eye on humans-turning-pony who had been detailing their transformations on Twitter or Tumblr blogs, Gage spoke up. "Stallions don't have nipples, Pete." It was almost funny, in a twisted sort of way, that Gage would be the one to confirm that Jacen was in part becoming female, given his own episode only nights prior. "Mares have teats, but they're hidden between the haunches. If both of his nipples are migrating down his right side, instead of just slowly disappearing like the guys in the blogs, that just confirms it."

Peter leaned away from Gage, seemingly taking a good look at his friend. "I'm scared to ask how you know that," he said in a measured voice. "Were you secretly a furry but never told us? Am I gonna find... weird things if I go poking around your room?"

Finally, Jacen managed a smile. "Wait, he was hiding it?" he joked, shooting his friend a teasing look. Oh he'd seen things the last few times he stayed over, but he was't mean enough to out his friend. "Really, though... remember what his parents were like. They wanted desperately for him to be your stereotypical girly-girl. What's something that the stereotype says girls like?"

Gage nodded. "Horses," he confirmed. "I won't lie, I did like the equestrian summer camp and weekends at my cousin's ranch, but it had nothing to do with being a girl." With a sigh, his friend looked down. It looked like Peter might've been trying to show him something on his phone. "I'm still not happy you got me infected, but I know it wasn't your fault... Regardless of what happens, you're still my friend. I... holy shit."

A message scrolled across the top of Jacen's phone. It appeared to be a link to a Twitter post, followed by a second message a moment later, linking to Tumblr. "Dude, you gotta check this out," Peter exclaimed. "The first photos of completed ETS transformations just leaked online, but what's more, look at the twitter post. Carbondale's outside the emergency area..." In a quieter voice, he whispered, "The Keter has breached containment."

Several hours later, Jacen was sitting in bed, staring at his phone. The dinner that the nurse brought him sat untouched. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the food; it was just that between the near omnipresent headache that had only gotten worse since waking up this morning, the nausea inflicted by both the anti-seizure meds and the ineffectual painkillers he was being dosed with, and the shock at what he'd seen online, he didn't have much of a desire to eat. He was too engrossed with the picture someone had snapped of two fully transformed ponies with an afflicted priest at a church in Carbondale, Colorado.

"Why do you think that one's so different from the others?" Jinx asked beside him. "There were a few unicorn variants in the Tumblr thread, even a shiny one and a batty one. Never any winged unicorns though."

Ever since his call with the others, she'd been surprisingly close. Though he couldn't feel her touch for the most part, he appreciated the simulated contact. It helped with this pathologic need to be around others, if only barely. That said, it almost seemed like her closeness was as much for her benefit as it was his.

"Dunno," he responded, shutting off the screen and putting the phone aside. "I get this weird feeling when I see her and that other one. I can't explain it, but they seem... different." He couldn't be entirely certain, but from the angle of the picture, he thought he could make out some sorts of marks on their hindquarters. The others didn't seem to have those. What did it mean? "At least everypony still seems sapient, even if it's weird how they just accept it."

As he stared up at the ceiling, he tried to picture his new pony body—er, bodies. Based on the pain in his right shoulder and upper back, he imagined the half of him that was determined to come out female would likely be of that nocturnal pegasus variant. It'd match up with the slit-pupil eye... but what of her coat? The ears that had grown in hadn't yet developed any sort of fur, so there was no hint for him there.

Meanwhile, his left side was likely to be male. Since he wasn't feeling any sort of pain specifically in his forehead, not that it was easy to tell with the headache he had, he was probably gonna be one of the variants that didn't have wings or a horn. That would probably make it hard to do anything he enjoyed. The—for lack of a better term—night pony wings at least had a finger, but could he ever play cards again?

"Maybe you should try to divine something with the cards," she suggested, glancing over at the cards stacked beside his pile of books. "Even if we can't remember the question we asked last night, it felt... real."

With a sidelong glance, he felt a fleeting moment of unease. Jinx sounded almost... eager, and he couldn't understand why. What was it about the cards that called to her? "Fine," he said with a hesitant tone. As he grabbed the book and shuffled the deck of cards atop it, he bit his lip. "What are you hoping to find? Why the cards?"

She shook her head. "I don't know how to put it," she murmured. "There's a part of us that feels drawn to the cards... like some promise of knowledge that shouldn't be there. Maybe it's hope. Maybe we just want something to help make sense of this." Once he was finished shuffling, she shrugged. "What I'd like to know is what this pony represents."

Past, present, future, then, he decided, dealiling out the three cards atop his lap and then opened the book at his free side. Three of Swords... Two of Swords... XVII - The Star. All upright. It was rather convenient that two of them were so close in the same suit. No taboo feeling came about as he went about the reading this time, but all that really told him was that he likely wasn't having any sort of seizure like before. "Let's see... If we're listening to what the cards have to say about that mare's past, she's likely hurting or grieving over something in her past... She's facing a difficult decision, but her choice could become a point of hope for the future."

That got a soft chuckle out of Jinx. "You almost sound like an actual soothsayer when you talk like that," she whispered. Despite the smile, her voice sounded... sad, as if she was holding something back. "Now do me."

His eyebrow perked up in suspicion. She knew just as well as he did that this was all just introspective tools. The cards themselves couldn't actually predict anything... yet she seemed fairly sure of herself. What's she trying to lead me to?

Shuffling the cards back into the deck he thought about what the question would be. Even if he didn't need to voice anything, it still helped to have something in mind. Gimme some insight into what's on Jinx's mind, please.

Jinx gave him a sad smile as he set down the first card face up. XX - Judgement, reversed. The words associated with the reversed card were self-doubt, lack of self-awareness, and self loathing. It fit with how she had come into being, having been born of his negative emotions, a little too well. Am I somehow subconsciously picking these cards?

The next card came down. Five of cups, reversed. Acceptance, finding peace, and moving on were what the book associated with the card. This, he found, was harder to divine. It could refer to the fact that she's been able to make peace with him and earn a degree of acceptance from him. Alternatively, she made peace with something else and was ready to move on. She has been acting suspicious since his seizure yesterday.

The final card was set. XXI - The World. It spoke of completion, wholeness, harmony, and fulfilment. There was a sense of finality about the meaning. Had she really found some sort of fulfilment in her time here? Where did completion, harmony, and wholeness come from though?

He frowned as he stared down at the book. It seemed so much easier to derive answers from the cards when he had some sort of context to draw upon. Even what he'd foretold about the Carbondale anomaly felt as though it came from somewhere. Jinx, on the other hand, looked as though she had expected each and every card, almost as if she'd picked each and every one.

"I don't understand," Jacen admitted, casting a sidelong glance at her. "If I didn't know better, I'd accuse you of influencing my shuffle and picking these cards specifically. I couldn't say what you'd get out of it, though, and I can't figure out what you're trying to tell me."

It caught him off guard when Jinx rested her head on his shoulder. "You have to have noticed that—ignoring the part where you're growing an entire second brain, and probably a second head soon, too—ETS is doing something to your mind," she admonished in a tired voice. Was it his imagination, or was she actually a bit less distinct than before? "You haven't had any nicotine cravings when you should be in withdrawal... you're using strange pronouns and you barely even acknowledge it..."

Tears spilt down her cheeks as she looked up to meet his gaze. "It's fixing you, for better or for worse," she explained. She even reached up and touched the middle of his forehead. "Whatever it has planned for you, I don't think a little mental illness is part of it. Even now, I can feel it eating away at me, Jacen. It's time for me to go."

A cold feeling filled his belly. She was going to go away? He'd only just learned to accept her as a part of him, and now she was telling him she was going away... "I don't accept that," he croaked. Forgetting that she didn't have a physical form, he attempted to wrap an arm around her to hug her close. Instead, his limb just passed right through her. "I still need you..." His voice hitched, and he found his eyes growing misty. "I don't want to be alone."

She wrapped him in a hug, flickering in his vision slightly. "You won't be alone," she whispered. "You'll have your other self for company soon... and everypony else, too." She frowned at that intrusion to her own vocabulary before releasing him. "I'm happy for what little time we've had together. Whatever happens next, whatever this does to you, I'm glad we got to make peace."

She got up from the bed and started walking towards the door. "Remember, Jace; the parts of you that created me are still a part of you." Despite her whisper, it sounded as though she were still right beside him. Even as she faded from view as she reached the door, her voice had a happy tone. Before she even reached the threshold of the door, she was gone. "So long as you remember me, I live on in you. Goodbye, Jacen."

Jacen tripped over himself, trying in vain to follow after her. Even as he crumpled to the floor at the foot of the hospital bed, he could feel a dam breaking inside him. It made no sense to cry for Jinx, and yet for some reason her leaving him behind drug to the surface so many feelings he thought buried. There was the emptiness he'd felt learning about the twin that never was, and the sorrow when he found out his his parents' plane went down. Most of all, it hammered home that he was losing his humanity and so many of the things that made him what he was today. All of it was hitting at once, and he was helpless but to take it.

With an anguished cry, he slammed his left fist into the floor beside him, shaking the room with a small tremor. The flooring where his knuckles connected shattered into a spiderweb of broken tile. A small cloud of pulverised concrete and tile hung in the air. It hurt like hell, but the pain was just as cathartic as the crying itself.

The first person to come running was Dr. Weintraub, having been resting in the next room over. She was quickly followed by one of the nurses assigned to watch over him, and Dr. Downey. Although the nurse looked terrified upon seeing the ruined tiling and the dent in the floor, both doctors quickly rushed over and helped him back onto the bed. When Downey called out to the nurse, she snapped out of her stupor and fetched some medical supplies.

"Jacen, what happened?" Tara asked, as Avery and the nurse inspected his hand. He didn't respond, instead falling silent and staring up at the ceiling. Even as tile fragments were plucked from his knuckles with forceps and the wounds disinfected, he simply cried in silence. All she could do was wonder what her patient thought he'd seen in the discarded tarot cards that caused him to break down.

Author's Note

So ends the short life of Jinx the mental aberration. May she rest in pizza in the depths of Jacen's mind, for as long as it is still his.

For those that have been reading the story so far, I've been toying around with the pony names for the two ponies created from Jacen. At first I've been toying with Prospero Dawn and Jinxi Dusk (yes, in part in honour of Jinx, and that spelling is intentional) for the earth pony and night pony respectively, but Dusk and Dawn seem to be pretty common in names. The idea is that Jinxi inherits the portion of the brain interested in tarot and fortune, whereas Prospero maintains Jacen's 'good luck'.. Thoughts on alternative second names?

Day XX: Relay

"Really, must we make this call in the comm centre?" Search Fragment asked the human technician. She'd had a hard time getting the Equestrian, American, and Canadian governments to agree to the idea of a facilitating a call between between her and one of Canada's many transformed citizens. Even then, being a facilitator, the Americans stipulated that they wanted direct oversight over the call to ensure no classified information was leaked. "The workstation provided in our portable is just as capable, is it not?"

Unfortunately for her, they didn't want to do the call in there—not as secure, they claimed. That was why the unicorn was being led past armed guards into a secure part of the facility her group had been stationed at. To his credit, the technician was a patient man; he just shook his head with a smile. "The computer workstations in your office aren't equipped with microphones or webcams," he explained as he led her over to an empty station in the corner of the room. "They're strictly set up for basic access for data processing and limited net access."

Limited is right, she thought as he dragged over a piece of furniture the humans called an ottoman. It wasn't perfect, but it was the highest they were able to provide to ponies in a room equipped primarily for humans. It appeared that the computer screen was already angled so that it better met the needs of the pony that would be using it, and she could see a small device clipped to the top of the monitor. I could barely get any information on the site that Dr. Tara Weintraub's group of Atlantic ponies was relocated to. Even then, that was only second-hoof from news sources talking about the controversy of sticking the ponies in a national park out of the way, but still in spitting distance of Halifax.

As she hopped up onto the cushioned piece of furniture, the technician was already explaining to her how this would all work. The unicorn analyst wouldn't need to touch anything, as somepony—or rather someone—else would be handling all the technical side, including putting the call through to her station. He did, however, plug something in to the station. It at first only appeared to be a long white cable that forked off into two thinner strands. Then she saw the small nubs and realised that these were what the humans called 'earbuds'—a tiny little speaker that could nestle in the ear so that she could hear what was being said, without it disturbing others. They weren't exactly made for ponies, but they were much easier to use with her ears than the headphones made for humans.

While she waited for the arranged time, Fragment took a pen and a scratchpad out of her saddlebags. Even if the doctor couldn't give her all the information she needed, she might be able to point her in the direction of someone or somepony that could fill some of the gaps. That's all she was here for, after all: fact-finding in order to complete records. She definitely wasn't going to pass the information off to her supervisor later on if it turned out action was required.

The moment the clock in the corner of the monitor clued her in that it was time, a window opened on the screen. On the other end was a middle-aged unicorn mare of dark blue colouration and a fluffy teal-streaked green mane. Atop her horn rested a pair of glasses that didn't at all fit her pony face, and over her withers hung a stethoscope. It was hard to tell from her coat, but based on the twigs and pine needles caught in her mane, Fragment thought the mare must have run through a forest to make the call.

"I apologise for my appearance," the doctor explained, as if having read her mind. "Somepony felled a tree a little too close to camp and nearly destroyed one of our shelters. No casualties, thankfully."

What was it about this world where pony settlements seemed to end up in the sticks, so to speak? "That's quite alright, Dr. Weintraub," Fragment responded with a soft smile. "I'm Search Fragment, the data analyst assigned by the Equestrian crown to go through all of the data on ETS victims in your region."

That smile was short-lived, as the doctor soon wilted at the mention of her name. "Please, call me Moonglow Salve, Ms. Fragment," she said in a quiet voice. She stood and turned slightly so that the camera on her end could show the blue six-pointed star with a white rod and serpent over top of a moon. If she wasn't mistaken, that was some sort of medical mark common to this world. "There's no going back for me."

She frowned. From what her records stated, the doctor had just barely squeaked in her complete transformation before Princess Twilight's counter-spell finally dragged the transformation magic to a halt. It hadn't mentioned the doctor getting her mark, but it was entirely possible the data sent to them was weeks out of date. Her having a mark made sense though. Those who dedicated themselves to healing didn't seem to have much trouble finding their marks, for better or for worse.

"Yes, sorry. If you don't mind, Dr. Salve," Search apologised, redirecting the conversation, "I was wondering if we could talk about one—or rather, two—of your patients. Jacen Cadlow? I understand there is a degree of doctor-patient confidentiality limiting what you should or could discuss, but I'm more interested in whether or not you could answer questions as to their whereabouts."

To the doctor's credit, if she was at all surprised that the Equestrians had taken an interest in her patient, she did an excellent job of hiding it. No, the mare looked as though it was expected. "One half of the pair is actually at the Blue Mountain - Birch Cove settlement—here with me," Moonglow explained, her ears folding back as she cast a glance over her shoulder. "He... Lucky Streak doesn't remember much before the incident. Although some of it might be attributable to the traumatic brain injury he sustained, but the grief of losing his twin has a hoof in it."

"Lost? But none of the paperwork we've been sent—" Search Fragment started, before being cut off by the doctor.

"She's not dead, if that's what you're thinking." There was a tired look in her eyes, but the analyst thought she might've seen a hint of concern. "After the incident, Jinxi was taken by the Halifax Regional Police. Even when I provided video evidence proving that she'd only been defending her brother and the other party refused to press charges, they held onto her... until she up and vanished."

The analyst blinked and then stared at the doctor while her magic scribbled down some quick notes. "Vanished from police custody... without a trace?" she asked, unsure if she misheard. "Just so I'm getting this right, Jinxi is the night pony filly that the transformation produced, correct? And Lucky Streak is an earth pony colt?"

Moonglow Salve nodded. "It's kind of being hushed up, so I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't received anything from the last two weeks," she said through gritted teeth. "They couldn't keep her in a jail cell because she was just scrawny enough to slip between the bars, so they kept her locked up in a dog crate in a back office. When she escaped, they tried to cover it up." The venom in her voice reminded her of interviews she'd heard from Shimmerists. "Documentation went missing, and the ATIP request I made came back so redacted that they might as well sent a completely black paper. Disgusting."

After a quick clarification to what this ATIP was for her notes, Search frowned. The doctor definitely had some source feeding her information, but one question nagged at her. "How are you so sure that she's alive?"

That actually got a chuckle out of the doctor. "She came to me in a dream," she answered in a more relaxed tone. "She was acting quite skittish, mentioning something about not being allowed into her brother's dreams and practically looking over her shoulder as if the Devil himself was chasing her. Jinxi asked me to look after him and then left. I wish I could tell you more."

As Search Fragment concluded the call, she looked over the notes she'd taken. Both halves of Jacen Cadlow had taken on pony names, but only one was accounted for. From the sound of things, Lucky Streak was going to be well taken care of, but may not have any recollection of other half at all. That would mean that arranging a call with him, now that she knew where he was, was out of the question.

Then there was Jinxi herself. The night ponies of Earth were far more aggressive, and their protection drive was through the roof. That should've meant that she'd want to protect her kin more than anything else in the world. Why hadn't she made more than a token attempt to reconnect with her brother and the physician who'd taken guardianship over him? Even if she feared arrest, from what Search had gleaned, the authorities might very well just pretend nothing had ever happened to spare themselves the embarrassment after covering up and attempting to destroy records.

For that matter, how had she managed to escape, and continue to evade apprehension? Jacen Cadlow did not have any sort of military record or survival and evasion training to speak of. In fact, he'd been little more than a gambler and day-trader. That begged the question of how had she simply dropped off the radar? Unless she hasn't.

They hadn't been able to gain access to any of his financial records, and she doubted any of the Canadian financial institutions would be willing to just hand over private information to the Equestrians. That meant they'd have to try to convince the American government to give them a hoof. What could they even say, though? 'Help us find this anomalous pony; she's one half of an American citizen and was was mistreated by one of your allies?'

She still couldn't even adequately explain why she or Nine were so interested in finding this pony. Academic interest in the unique circumstances of their transformation was worthless. General empathy and concern after reading the file could only take them so far. Anything they did without going through the proper channels would be seen as interference. At least if they could create a justification, they could start an inquiry. All they really had to show so far was that there was indication that a pony was being mistreated in another country, and the authorities being alleged to cover it up.

By the time she got back to the office, her frustration was only growing. Dr. Salve had indicated that she'd been visited in the dream realm by the missing twin, but not specifically how long ago. If it'd been exactly two weeks since the visit, Jinxi could be dead now, or she could be anywhere. Perhaps the only pony around who might be able to help was Princess Luna. This almost feels like I'm trying to track down changelings for S.M.I.L.E. again.

"Good news and bad news, ma'am," she announced as Agent Nine looked up from her own mess of paperwork. "The good news is that one of them is safe. The colt, Lucky Streak, has some lingering memory issues from the incident, but he is under the care of Dr. Moonglow Salve, née Tara Weintraub, at the Blue Mountain - Birch Cove settlement site in Nova Scotia."

Agent Nine of Clubs nodded, but frowned. "That good news seems to hint toward where your bad news is going... Hit me with it."

"The night pony filly, known only by Jinxi, has vanished without a trace." Nine's expression darkened at this. Fragment glanced at her notes only once more before continuing. "Dr. Salve has asserted that she was held by police following the incident, even after the other party refused to press charges and evidence proving defence of her sibling was provided. She's small enough to slip through bars of a jail cell, and was kept locked in an animal crate. Apparently, she escaped through indeterminate means and has since been evading detection, even as the police agency involved covers its flank."

Nine shook her head, regarded the papers before her. "What a mess," she replied. "Do we even know if she's still alive? She could've gotten herself killed by some random humans since her escape."

"The only way to be sure is the dream realm," Search Fragment concluded. "The doctor's been visited once, but she seems to believe Jinxi yet lives, so she may have held back."

The field agent buried her face in her hooves and groaned. "So we either have to come up with a reason to get Princess Luna involved, or find a sympathetic local night pony to help out." Again, she glanced down at a print-out on her desk. "With her disposition towards us, I don't think that up-and-coming Shimmerist leader will be willing to help unless she sees something in it for her. Despite the large night pony population there, I don't fancy trying to get into contact with her flock behind her back, either."

As she waved Search Fragment back over to her desk, Nine of Spades creased her brow. "For now, why don't we try and figure out how our missing little pony has been evading detection for upward of two weeks."

Day 7 + 8: Twins

The morning after his mental companion left him, Jacen—or at least, his left side—awoke in excruciating pain. When the nurses came running to investigate the scream that came out of him, one of them actually fainted at the sight of him. That in turn resulted in medical staff from outside the ward being brought in, and several more incidents. At least three others fainted, and a fourth vomited.

It wasn't until someone dosed him with an opioid-based painkiller that the pain of his body practically tearing itself apart became tolerable enough to function. Nobody wanted to provide the man with a mirror, and when he finally saw his reflection in the window, he couldn't rightly blame anyone for fainting or vomiting. He was truly a sight to behold.

Overnight, part of the process splitting him in two had sped up, resulting in a few big changes. His skull had stretched and deformed to the point that he was not unlike a two-headed snake. Two faces jutted out from his head at forty-five degree angles, complete with their own complete jaws. The masses that had been growing behind his eyes had shifted out to join their same-coloured siblings. Even the curvature at the top of his head was beginning to show a spot that could loosely have been considered a 'join'.

There were also further shifting of bones lower down his body. It was fairlyly noticeable at his pelvic region, where, much like his two faces, his hips had shifted out by forty-five degrees to either side. His feet—if they could even be called that any longer—were worse, and had started to split in two between the second and third metatarsal. They ended up looking less like the foot of a man and more like that of an emu.

The only 'beneficial' change that he could see was where the fur started coming in on his legs. Around his foot and left ankle, he could see the same near-white that made up the mane of white on his right side coming in like sock. Conversely, his right was growing that same blue-grey that was on his left head. So at least he could pretty much picture how both halves of him were going to look.

Unfortunately, the transformation seemed to be kicking in on Dr. Weintraub, as well—and a lot faster too. When she came in to visit with him after he'd been medicated, he noticed her hair had started to change. It even seemed to be moving somewhat quicker for her; whereas for him it'd taken about a week after he recovered from the flu to start showing symptoms, she said she'd gotten over it overnight and now she had green with streaks of teal going partway up her hair from the tips.

If not for the somewhat euphoric state the Oxycodone had inadvertently created, he'd probably have been fretting over the guilt he felt knowing that he was to blame for her infection. As it stood, he could barely focus on even reading for extended periods of time, never mind focus on complex emotions such as guilt. Instead, he found himself just zoning out watching the news and random survival videos on his phone.

If anything, he was grateful for someone else to be there with him. If his other half had a conscious mind as of yet, she—his mind was quick to assign the pronoun, despite not even knowing if they would identify differently—wasn't exactly making for the best conversational partner. It was a wonder she could sleep at all, given that she had to be feeling the same amount of pain he was in.

Tara, on the other hand, was very keen on keeping an eye on him. By keeping him engaged in conversation, not only was she able to determine what—if any—impact this twinning was having on his cognitive functions, but she felt sure that she was almost watching his right side changing in real-time. It was horrific, to be sure, but from a scientific perspective it was fascinating how this process was able to accelerate growth and conversion of mass. If the United States government hadn't already released a press statement all but calling the power fuelling this transformation magic, she could almost have drawn upon the word to describe it.

She'd also noticed some changes in his behaviour. Although some of it might've been attributable to being medicated, he didn't seem nearly as distressed about his transformation or even the cause of his meltdown the prior night. If anything, Jacen seemed colder—less expressive than he ought to be. Another thing that didn't even faze him was the fact that he had seemingly gone from right-handed to left-handed overnight.

It was well argued that the left and right hemispheres of the brain were responsible for different sorts of thought. The left side of the brain was said to be tied to analytical and rational thinking, mathematics, language, logic, and organization. Conversely, the right side was said to be linked to intuition, creativity, impulse, and imagination. Some even believed that the dominant hemisphere had a critical impact on personality.

Dr. Weintraub had never particularly given that last bit much thought in the past. Now, however, she was left to wonder if there wasn't some sort of credence to the idea, or if this transformation and the splitting—twinning?—of his brain wasn't exaggerating these attributes. Given that he just finished probing her as to which variant transformation she thought she'd become, he was definitely... changing. It didn't really make things any easier that he'd somehow come to the conclusion that the entire world would probably be ponies before June.

"Since everypony who has transformed down in Colorado still seems to be intelligent and capable of speech, I wonder," he commented as he placed his phone down beside the stack of tarot cards, which remained untouched since the previous night. His eyes actively tracked a nurse as she entered with his dinner, taking in the fact that she was currently looking a little under the weather and trying to hide a cough behind her surgical mask—just like the other one in the ward. "Do you think you'll continue practising medicine when you're ponies?"

That question was jarring, both for Tara and the nurse. Not only did it perfectly highlight a verbal tic that had been growing more prominent in him—a gradual change in pronouns that all afflicted exhibited—but it drew attention to another concerning matter. If it was as he believed, and all of mankind vanished, leaving only ponies behind, much of their technology would become useless, and whatever infrastructure there was would be harder to maintain without hands. Could they even practice medicine then?

Before either could overcome their shock or formulate a response, he'd nodded off. "Do you think he's right?" the nurse asked, setting down his tray of food on one of the tables. "Do you think we're all going to become like those poor people in Lazy Pines?"

Tara fidgeted with her hair as she stood up from the chair beside his bed. "I don't know," she replied, walking over to the window to look out at Halifax. "If he is, I worry that we may be on the precipice of a dark age. Maybe I should brush up on my herbal medicine." It had been meant as a joke, but the doctor realised that it was true. "I—"

There was commotion outside the room, and as the doctor and nurse both looked, several people in patient gowns were being led into the other rooms in the ward by the hospital director and several physicians who definitely weren't members of staff. Many of the patients were also sporting unusual hair and eyes, and it looked like there was even one with a tail. The other nurse assigned to the ward poked her head in through the door and said, "A whole bunch of patients in other wards, and even hospitals are being transferred in. Welcome to the ETS Plague Ward, ladies." Giving a glance to the sleeping Jacen, she added, "Might wanna pull the privacy curtain, otherwise a child's gonna end up traumatised."

Something was wrong, Jacen decided as he woke up. For one thing, it was well after sundown. He'd never slept through an entire day before, and it was kind of jarring to wake up with a tray of dinnertime foods set out for him. Strangely enough, he didn't feel as hungry as he thought he ought to after sleeping that long. Strange.

Then there was the fact that the ward was entirely too noisy. Last night, it was quiet enough that he could hear a pin drop—and with his new pony ears, that was quite an impressive silence—but now, he could make out the din of conversation. The other rooms are being used now? That definitely explained the privacy curtain, though.

Finally, there was something nagging at the back of his mind—something about his body that he felt was important to address. Whatever it was, however, he couldn't quite remember. It was clearly important, except... He caught sight of something to his left. He tried to turn his head to get a better look, but whatever it was moved with him. It wasn't until he looked at his reflection in the window that he saw the second, sleeping face.

"Oh," he whispered in a voice that was surprisingly high to his ears. It reminded him of Gage before he started doing vocal training... Just like a teenage filly, er, girl. "I'm the one on the right..."

There was the sound of someone moving on the other side of the curtain, followed by a sleepy voice. "Jacen?" That was Dr. Weintraub's voice. "What are you doing back up?"

He just stared at his reflection, rather than respond. She said back up, as if I'd been awake already today... It finally hit what was bothering him. If he was the one on the right side, then he was becoming a she... That was something that should've been distressing. So why wasn't it?

I can't be the original... I had to have been born of Jaina's cells. That was kind of disturbing, to think they might not be the original. Didn't the Mauler twins in that Invincible comic make sure neither knew which was the clone in order to prevent feelings of inferiority? I'm definitely Jacen... I have all of my memories, but I'm not the original. Maybe that's why I feel weird... My gender identity hasn't had time to develop, but the simple fact that I'm turning into a filly...

The familiar face of Tara stepped around the privacy curtain, a look of concern on her face. "Jacen, are you—" The moment she saw that this was the right face, rather than the left, she redirected, quickly moving to the bedside. "Do you know who you are, where you are, and who I am?"

"I'm still me, but I'm not the original, am I?" Jacen asked in a shaky voice. There were tears in his eyes as he finally turned to regard the doctor. "What do I even call myself, Dr. Weintraub?"

That wasn't something that she could definitively answer. She wasn't a mental health practitioner; it was one thing to provide healthcare to her trans patients, but she would never presume to give advice about the mental health side of things—only referrals. Jacen's—at least this half's—immediate default to crisis of identity was beyond her. What could she even say? They were in a very vulnerable mental state, and if she was right, their sense of self identity might be very malleable right now.

"What do you want to be called?" she instead asked. "I don't just mean your name, although calling both of you Jacen will get confusing. Take a moment to breathe, and then think about which upsets you more: the knowledge that you're turning into a female pony, or the thought of being referred to by male pronouns?"

He did as she suggested, and took in a deep breath. For several seconds, he held it, before forcing it out through his nostrils. While he did that, he turned his thoughts inwards. I'm Jacen Cadlow... Twenty-five years old. That much hasn't changed. What had changed was that he was slowly turning into two little ponies. And I'm apparently the half turning into a female pony—a mare or just a filly? A hand came up to wipe away the tears. I was perfectly fine being a guy before... so why does thinking of myself as male feel weirder than tuning into—?

"Um... I don't know... Male pronouns feel... wrong now... Yet..." They hadn't come to a decision on pronouns, as just realising that masculine pronouns felt alien to them was jarring enough. "I don't know what I want... but she or they will at least make it easier to differentiate me—" They pointed a finger up at the sleeping face on their left side. "—from him."

She nodded, and quickly redirected discussion when it became clear that line of thought was causing distress. "As you may have already heard with those ears of yours, there are a lot more people in our ward now," she explained. "More people exhibiting symptoms of ETS. Nobody quite as far along as you. Since I'm in quarantine as well—" She tousled her discoloured hair for emphasis. "—and I am still technically your primary caregiver, I figured I'd spare someone else the... experience of seeing you in this state."

Jacen surprisingly cracked a smile as they reached for their tarot deck and the guidebook. "I can only imagine how I look given how revolting I feel," they murmured, shuffling the cards as they turned their gaze to the window. A feeling of revulsion filled their belly as they caught sight of their reflection, and they quickly looked away. With a sniff, they asked, "Did someone throw up in here?"

The doctor couldn't help herself; she laughed. "Yes, and three nurses fainted," she answered after composing herself. "Your other half made quite the racket when he woke this morning." Her eyebrow quirked up and she regarded them with a cautious eye. "Aren't you in pain?"

With a shake of their head, they set three cards face down on their lap. "Not really," they answered, their hand drifting just below their navel. Beneath the hand and the gown, the doctor knew there was a scar where Jacen had needed an emergency hysterectomy as a youth—a reminder of how unique a patient they were. "I've had worse pain. Mind if I read your fortune to you?"

It was something that the doctor couldn't help but feel was unusual. When the left half woke, he was in crippling agony. Sure, the nurses had done a good job of keeping him medicated, it had still been several hours since any painkillers had been administered. If the two were still sharing control over their limbs, then much of the nerves were still shared between the two; any pain he felt, they should also have felt. Was it possible that the different archetypes possessed different levels of pain tolerance? Or was it simply a matter of bravado or not wanting to appear weak?

Not only that, but it felt like she clearly wasn't talking to the same person. It wasn't just the voice, although that would definitely make it easier to differentiate between the two. This Jacen was nowhere near as confident, nor as calm. It was also interesting how the left half seemed completely uninterested in the cards, instead favouring the science fiction without even an word of complaint. Meanwhile this one's first reaction was not to check the phone or grab a book for distraction, but to offer to do a reading like it was completely natural.

"If it makes you comfortable, but I need to go back to bed soon enough," she responded before yawning again. "If you're up long, could you keep the noise down? I know it's only quarter to nine now, but it's been a long day, and I'm volunteering to help out with the other patients while I'm still capable."

Right-side Jacen nodded, turning over the first card as they flipped open the guide book. "IV - the Emperor, Reversed," they announced. "There used to be a person in your life—perhaps a teacher, father-figure, or partner—who abused their power over you... they wanted to exert control over your life, and created an unhealthy power dynamic."

Tara raised an eyebrow, and pursed her lips, but otherwise didn't comment as the next card was flipped. "Queen of Cups, upright. In spite of everything you've been through, or perhaps because of it, you've become a person of compassion... a healer. Even in the throes of this virus, here you are, supporting us when you could have washed your hands of us."

A good-humoured snort escaped the doctor, and she just started shaking her head. "Last card is... Two of Pentacles, upright," they declared in a confident tone. "Pony or not, you're a doctor; you'll find ways to adapt the old in your life to whatever ETS brings you. It might mean you have to have to become flexible with the things at hoof, er, hand, but you'll continue to thrive." Sweeping up the cards, they commented, "I'm not very good, but I can see how it can be a tool for encouragement of others. How'd it sound?"

When Tara finally stopped slowly shaking her head, she gave her patient a soft smile. "Can't say I've ever had anyone exerting an unhealthy degree of power over me," she responded. "The physician supervising me back when I was but an medical intern in Hamburg was not a good person, but they never interfered. Everything else sounds exactly like what one of those phony psychics would say."

With only a little more conversation about what the other half was up to all day, Weintraub returned to her own bed and went to sleep, leaving them to their own devices. Although they would have liked to listen to some music, they had no earbuds that they thought might work with their new pony ears. Listening without was out of the question since it was a little past nine now. Besides, they didn't find any of the music they currently had loaded all that appealing.

It struck them as odd. They'd grown up with the punk rock, hard rock, glam rock, and pretty much any and all metal, courtesy of Jacen's father. Not long after, they'd developed a taste for EDM and Eurobeat, and for years those were all they had been they'd listened to. Now, however, none of those sounded appealing.

Instead, they reached for their phone, and frowned. Left Jacen had run it down pretty low, and though it was charging, they wouldn't be able to take it off the charger for quite a while. Oh well, they thought, as they brought it over as close as the could and then moved to sit at the edge of the bed. To their surprise, he also hadn't been in contact with either Gage or Pete. Just watching stuff on the phone or reading that sci-fi garbage.

PestilenceOfHorses: Hey, Gage? You there?

You know it, Jace. :HexsideHero

Haven't heard from you all day though. What's up with that? :HexsideHero

They paused, considering how best to phrase any of this. Their friend was about to find out that Jacen was two people already. Not only that, but the other half was apparently too busy watching the news and wilderness survival shit to say hi. They just couldn't get their head around what he was thinking.

PestilenceOfHorses: Sorry about that. Um... This is kinda hard to explain but bear with me, yeah?

Um... okay? :HexsideHero

PestilenceOfHorses: You already know how ETS is splitting us in two. Well, last night, it hit us super bad with the whole twinning thing. We look horrifying enough that three nurses fainted when the left half woke up screaming in pain this morning. We're literally two-faced right now, and our head looks super weird... I woke up only like an hour ago, and he apparently fell asleep just three hours ago.

I feel like asking for a picture right now would probably be super insensitive and gross... :HexsideHero

So what's up? Wait, what do I even call you, since calling you both Jacen is gonna get confusing fast. :HexsideHero

PestilenceOfHorses: I really don't know. The first thing I even did upon waking up was have an identity crisis. I know I'm not the original... and I don't feel comfortable with male pronouns for some reason, but I'm not sure if I identify the other way... My voice is different now... The only reason I'm not freaking out is because my doctor's my roommate now, and she managed to calm me down, but I'm scared, Gage.

Big oof there. Well, you certainly reached out to the right guy. I'm here if you wanna talk out your identity stuff. It's the least I could do when you were there for me. :HexsideHero

But before that, is there anything you can think of that you'd like to be called? :HexsideHero

They bit their lip as they considered his question. His first thought was to use something from one of his favourite books... but Gage wasn't exactly fond of being reminded that they had a Potter phase, even if he seemed to like Luna Lovegood's character. Jaina was still off the table too.

He remembered the last thing Jinx said before disappearing. "Remember, Jace; the parts of you that created me are still a part of you. So long as you remember me, I live on in you. Goodbye, Jacen."

PestilenceOfHorses: Jinx left us last night... Said ETS was doing something to our brain that was making it harder for her to exist... It feels like she was more interested in the tarot cards than we were, but I wonder if those parts didn't stick in my half of the brain, 'cause Doc Weintraub said the other me showed zero interest in them at all through the day. Plus, I kinda want to keep her memory alive. Is that weird?

Kinda. You said she tormented you for years, but now you don't want to let her go. Calling you by the name your mental illnesss gave itself is even weirder. :HexsideHero

There was a couple of minutes where nothing was said. The ellipses appeared a couple of times during that time, but they were ultimately left waiting for whatever their friend was planning saying. That was okay. It was better if he was considering whatever he said.

How about Jinxi? :HexsideHero

My mandarin's a bit rusty, but 今夕 reads Jīnxī, which means tonight or this evening. It's also visually and phonetically similar to Jinxi, while being distinct enough to not just be calling yourself Jinx. I figure since you're turning into one of those nocturnal ponies, why not have a feminine sounding name that was tied to the night? :HexsideHero

They blinked, reading the response, and whispering the name out loud to themselves. They weren't sure about wanting to sound feminine, but the name had an appeal to them, more than just plain Jinx did. It also had a youthful ring to it, the way some Alexandras went by Lexi.

PestilenceOfHorses: I love it, Gage.

In the next room over, they could hear a woman with a Western American accent arguing in an exasperated tone with what sounded like a child. Apparently, the child wanted her Mom to sing her to sleep. It wasn't the most unusual argument they'd ever heard, but what was odd was the fact that the child wanted a non-lullaby. Eventually, she conceded, and started to sing.

"Almost heaven, West Virginia,

Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River,

Life is old there, older than the trees,

Younger than the mountains, growin' like a breeze."

Jinxi knew the lyrics to the infamous John Denver song. They'd never much cared much for it in the past, but now, it didn't sound too bad to their ears. It did, however, make them feel a bit homesick. Who would keep Gage and Pete in line if they were small horses? Who would keep them safe? Softly, in their own quiet voice, they sang along. "Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong..."

The next morning was a bit of a shock to Jacen. The room's blinds were drawn, and his hands was already occupied with his phone, and when he looked down, he saw it was the day-trading app tied to his investments in the United States. The second thing he noticed was that he could actually turn his head slightly to see the other face. Curiously, she—his brain was having a hard time assigning any other pronoun to the other half—still awake, although they looked exhausted. It's only eleven in the morning, though.

"O-oh. Morning, Jacen," she said in a tired voice. She set the phone down and yawned. "I dunno if we still share a stomach, but I already ate our breakfast." As if considering something, she quickly added. "Call me Jinxi, by the way. It'll make things less confusing."

"Jinxi," he answered in a flat tone as he picked the fully-charged phone back up to look at what she'd been doing. "Isn't it a bit soon to steal her name?"

"Not steal," she defended, borrowing his left hand to rub her shoulder where her new webbed wings were already nearly finished growing in. "Honouring. Check the chat I had last night with Gage for the reasoning. Dunno if I think of myself as a filly, but I'm not gonna get mad at you if you're thinking of me with those terms already. Sorta feels inevitable."

He gave her the side-eye for a moment before rolling his eyes. "Uh-huh." He scrolled through all the new stocks she'd purchased and those she'd sold. There was a lot of new stocks in construction suppliers and forestry, and not just piddling shares, either. Most of them were big names like Vulcan, Trex, and UFP Industries, but one he'd never really noticed before also appeared: Westvaco. "Did you sleep at all last night?"

Jinxi tried to shake her head, only to jerk his aside as well. It seemed that although their heads had separated, they were mostly still sharing the same neck. "I'm clearly the nocturnal type." She reached up an flicked the little grey tufts at the ends of her ears. "I forced myself to stay up, even though I'd love nothing less than to have gone to sleep a little after sun-up." She gestured to the stack of tarot cards with her thumb, and then the phone. "I did a reading on myself after I stopped talking with Gage, and got a good feeling about those industries. So I started researching companies, and once the exchange opened, I started selling and buying up."

That made him scowl. Even if the world economy didn't just completely crash and never recover because of ETS, the thought of buying and selling stocks because of a feeling the cards gave her was ridiculous. Worse, it wasn't at all rational. "I see here you also sold a lot of our tech stocks," he grumbled. "The fuck did you go and do that for?"

She groaned, shutting off the screen and angling it so she could look him in the eyes. "You know tech's gonna take a huge hit if we all become ponies, Jace," she said in a tired voice. Okay, maybe she wasn't completely irrational. "Even assuming not every human in the world changes, there'll be significantly less demand in the short run, and assuming we even get treated like people, I doubt there'll be a huge rush to make tech for ponies..."

"Whereas there'll be more incentive for pony friendly homes?" he asked. He thought he had a better grasp on what she was thinking, but he considered something she hasn't. "How do you know they won't just try and move us all out in the sticks or into camps? Remember the Japanese internment during the second world war? That could be us."

It surprised him when she nodded. "All the more reason to assume money might still have value in the long run." Another yawn interrupted her. "We're no billionaires, but between our savings here and stateside, and our investments on both sides of the border, we could easily afford to pay to have several small buildings built. More if we just buy the supplies and the ponies construct everything themselves. Or maybe you're right, and we might need civil rights lawyers."

He couldn't help but chortle. "Listen to you, thinking about everypony's futures," Jacen said in a wistful voice. To be honest, she reminded him of Gage. Despite being one of the biggest targets for bullying and harassment in school, he always stood up for himself, but more so he stood up for his friends. Here she was already thinking about the other soon-to-be ponies in their ward. "You're undoubtedly the little sibling, but you've got those big sibling instincts, don't you?"

Her cheeks flushed, and she hijacked the hands to reach over to the table to grab an eye mask they didn't have before. "Yeah, well... somepony's gotta," she murmured. "By the way, I bribed an orderly to go and get us some ear buds. Also got this mask so the light doesn't interfere with my sleep. Mine are the pink ones." There was a paranoid look on her face as she pulled on the mask. "Feel free to listen to your music, but don't touch the songs in my playlist, okay? I didn't spend that money just to waste data."

Author's Note

I could only imagine how their first encounter with the Warden of Passion/Lust will go.

Note: Most of the tarot spreads in this fic are done with the aid of an online tool, rather than intentionally coming up with intentional sets. Except for the readings for the following questions, all draws were randomly generated, and (from the perspective of Jacen) I interpreted them in my own amateur reading. The rest were merely convenient.

"Is someone responsible for ETS?"¹
"What I'd like to know is what this pony represents."²
Gimme some insight into what's on Jinx's mind, please.³

¹ - From Day 5: Lockdown
Whether or not this one is magic, actual prophecy, or simply chance and seizure, is still up for you to decide, but it was intentionally laid out this way. In the most literal interpretation, it indeed does tells the story of Sunset Shimmer, and yet it also describes the overall situation of ETS and how it played out. When the virus was deployed, it was the start of a transitory period that would force us to leave behind everything we knew in the search of a greater answer. It was a period of great injustice, and some would unfairly blame ponies for everything that had changed the world, and retaliate out of fear. Although one can interpret XIII - Death in the literal sense, its general upright reading speaks of transformation, the end of one cycle and the beginning of another, of transitions and release. The world was forever changed by the virus, and for some it was a release they never knew that they needed; some faced truths about themselves and came out for the better, while others gained had their paths in life reaffirmed, giving them new confidence.

² - From Day 6: Horseplay (Isn't in the Cards)
Jacen's reading there was another reference toward the overall plot of Pandemic. Unfortunately, there's no secondary meaning here. Just some genuine insight into a certain Purple Smart.

³ - From Day 6: Horseplay (Isn't in the Cards)
It was exactly as he had predicted. Just as she'd managed during Jacen's seizure and that time on his patio, she'd managed some physical control on his body and stacked the shuffle. Sometimes, it's hard to put what you want to say into words without having someone there to help contextualise what you're feeling.

Day 11: Part 1 - A Brother's Vision

Jacen finds himself in a large tent, seated at a table surrounded by other ponies, some of them more well-off looking than others. There's a feeling of belonging as he stares down at several documents. It's the survey for a large plot of land, and several different parties have submitted different ideas for that land. The earth ponies want to take the majority of the land allotted to them by the government and do everything they can to turn it into farmland to provide crops for the planned community. The pegasi point out that the area the earth ponies want has a natural spring that shouldn't be disturbed, as it would provide the best, cleanest water for the community. Meanwhile, the unicorns and the rich ponies are pointing out that the area around the spring should be used for housing, rather than having to trudge through the farmland.

Everything is getting heated, and nopony is really budging. That is until something in the plans catches Jacen's eyes. The earth ponies, while serious about providing for the settlement, have made a mistake in their plan for the land. If the group followed their plan, only place for housing would be on marshlands. He quickly points that out, and the earth pony representative apologises to the group. Despite the argument nearly coming to blows, there seems to be no bad blood toward him.

The next matter of business is who should be elected leader of the community. There are several different nominees. A unicorn doctor... An earth pony lawyer... Even a pegasus trained for weather control by some of the best. The final nominee, however, is one that Jacen doesn't expect will get many other votes: a night pony from across an Old World border, she was a town councillor for a town that no longer exists thanks to ETS. She might get a pity vote or two, but would ponies want to be led by a foreigner, even if she was the most qualified?

To his surprise, the vote is unanimous in favour of her. Without missing a beat, they're onto the next matter of business. The settlement has been allotted funds for building shelter, but most of money would be eaten up by construction labour. One of the unicorns suggests that the richest in the community chip in. The earth ponies think that rather than pay others to do the work, they should just buy the materials and build everything themselves. The pegasi side with the earth ponies, but the rich ponies seem dubious as to whether that was good usage of time and funds.

Again, Jacen puts his own two cents in. Those with money should do their best to help those less fortunate, but using funds intelligently was also important. He suggested that those who could afford it donate to the settlement's funds, and everypony work together to get everything built themselves. That way, if there were any sort of disaster or crisis here or in nearby communities, that accumulated wealth could be put to better use. Although the wealthy members of the committee seem less enthused, the rest of the ponies love the idea.

Soon, all of their work is complete. all of the other ponies rise and do something rather odd. As they all make for the exit, they pause to tap outstretched forehooves with the other committee members, not unlike a high five. He watched them all exit the tent to go celebrate a job well done, and Jacen is left by himself. He feels a sense of contentment in using his analytical mind to help the others build a new home together. It was a far cry from the gambling of his youth, but it felt somehow better. Like he had a purpose. Except, now that he was alone, that glee was fading.

"So what have you learned, Jacen?" comes a voice from behind him. The tent flap to his back opens, and he can hear the sound of hoofsteps behind him. When he turns to face the pony, he is left awed. A great white mare with a mane like the Northern Lights stood before him, looking down at his new teenage body with a motherly gaze. He is struck dumb by the sight of both the horn on her head, and the wings on her sides.

"Pardon?" he asks as he gets over the shock. "I don't follow."

"Look back at all you have experienced here," the mare asks.

He considers this for a moment. "I found myself here, among others..." he says slowly. "I used to hate being around a lot of strangers, but it felt good to be around these ponies."

The smile never leaves her face as she nods down at him. "A stranger is simply a friend waiting to be made."

Again, he considered what he'd seen. "Despite being having the body of a colt barely in his teens, they accepted me and my input without question."

"There are no barriers to friendship."

He smiles as recognition fills his eyes. "The ponies here... we are all here to help set up a home for ponies who could not stand remaining in the cities. Ponies always help those in need."

"Very good!" she exclaims. There's the makings of pride in her eyes, and he feels compelled to stoke those embers into a roaring flame. "What else?"

"Although some seemed reluctant to part with their wealth, the ponies were all willing in the end. Generosity was more important than personal ambition."

"And?"

He recalls the way the rest of the ponies in the group forgave the earth pony representatives. "Ponies always forgive?"

She nods. "There's yet more," she says.

The way the ponies celebrated a job well done...the fruits of working together to establish a new home, and preparing their own disaster relief fund. "Regardless of the problems they have with one another, ponies work together... even if it's another community in need." He gazes back at the tent door, where those who had just left can be heard partying. "There's always time to enjoy life, too."

The mare has a contented look on her face. "There's but one lesson left for you to learn." She joins him back at the table, and looks down a locket lying open before him. When he looks down, and he sees himself and a night pony filly who, save for the eyes and the way her coat and mane were a swap of his own, looked just like him, he feels warmth within his chest. "A pony never needs to be alone."

He looks up from the locket to the mare, before returning his attention to the locket. Her expression says that she's expecting something from him, but what? There's some lesson to be put together from all of this, but he cannot be sure. She seems to be highlighting their behaviours. "Are you trying to idealise these behaviours?" he asks, looking up to her. "Are these what is expected of ponies?"

"This is how all ponies should act, should they desire a civilisation of peace and plenty," the mare in white calmly stated. "Look at the basic principals at play in everything you have witnessed. Kindness, Laughter, Loyalty, Generosity and Honesty. Imagine a whole world based around those five tenets."

"It does sound pretty idyllic, but it'll be hard to implement," he commented. It isn't just that ponies have to agree with to behave like this. Human greed and hate could still have its roots in the minds of some. Having been one himself, he has his doubts about it all. "I wanna buy that this is achievable... that we all just to follow these five tenets and life will be peachy keen... But it's a pipe dream."

"Nonsense, Jacen," the mare turns her back to him and begins walking back towards the tent's entrance. "With faith in yourself, your friends, and what you can do, anything is possible."

It was nice waking up without being in any pain, Jacen decided. After waking Saturday morning in crippling agony, the doctors had determined that it would be best for him, and everypony else in the ward, if the rest of his transformation went with he and Jinxi in a medically induced coma. As a result, they put him under anesthesia on Saturday, only for him to come to on Monday afternoon.

Despite the fact that the mental mathematics he'd done insisted is transformation shouldn't be done until tomorrow, he was fully pony right now. His white coat blended in quite well with the linens, but the hoof itself looked to be about the same colour as his sister's coat. As he looked around the room, taking in the brighter, more vivid colours, it finally started to sink in just how much he'd lost in terms of size. Everything looked so much bigger to him.

Beside him, Jinxi was still asleep, although it appeared that her transformation was slightly behind his own. She was on her side, curled in something approaching the fetal position, her back touching his side. Her facial bones were still in the process of distorting and turning into a muzzle, and her forehooves were still distorted, the fingers slowly merging into hooves. He wondered if she wasn't still under the effect of anaesthetic, though, because she was very still and breathing slowly.

Still, he felt lucky to have her. Random happenstance had prevented him from having a sibling, and yet ETS had given him a second chance. Even if she was mostly the same as him in the head, she was one more living family member than he'd once had. Part of him wanted to hate whatever or whoever had caused the virus, but looking at his sister and realising that she would be a beautiful, healthy filly, he remembered the words he'd spoken to that mare in his dream—no, it felt more like a vision; it was far too vivid to be a dream.

"Ponies always forgive," he murmured, wincing when he noticed that his voice was now closer to what he'd sounded like when he was younger. That would take getting used to.

He heard the clicking of hooves—no, those were definitely heeled shoes—outside the privacy curtain, and quickly sat upright. There was the sound of hooves elsewhere, but it sounded like whoever this pony was, they were mostly human. A nurse who, despite her personal protective equipment, was sporting glittering cherry-blossom pink hair and a pair of striking viridian eyes, looked down at him. At first, he thought he wasn't as short as his eyes told him, since he appeared to be at least eye-level with the mare's—er, woman's—navel, but he quickly realised that a lot of that height was probably the hospital bed.

She seemed somewhat surprised to see that he was awake. "Good morning, Mister Cadlow," the nurse said as she reigned in her expression. "How do you feel? Any pain or discomfort?"

He shook his head and smiled up at her. "I feel good," he answered quickly. "Everything feels right... like it's what I'm meant to be." He slowly pushed himself up into a standing position, and carefully—so as to not disturb Jinxi—moved over to the foot of the bed, where the nurse stood. "I have instinct telling me exactly how my body works."

To demonstrate this, he turned on the spot, wiggled his ears, and then, his back to her, swished his tail from side to side. She looked kind of embarrassed, and that confused him for a moment. Then he remembered, she was still mostly human, and had just gotten a good look at his business. Sure, she was a nurse, but she probably wasn't used to seeing pony anatomy, and it was probably quite odd to her that he wasn't at all abashed at his nudity.

"Doesn't that seem weird to you?" she asked. "You've lost your humanity, and you clearly have been brainwashed to accept it. It's leaked all over the internet that this was intentional! You should be angry at the terrorist behind all of this!"

He considered that. It was true that he'd lost his humanity, but hadn't he gained more than he lost? Jacen felt healthy as a horse, and his body felt whole—he felt whole. The sense that there was something missing from his life, and the guilt he felt over the knowledge that he'd absorbed his twin in the womb was no longer there. ETS had not only given him peace of mind... It had given him back his sister.

He just shook his head and smiled at her. "You'll understand when you're done transforming." He tried not to sound condescending, but it was hard not to. There were no humans in the vision; the world wouldn't have any left by the time ETS ran its course. "Sure, I wish that I'd been given a choice in all of this, but I'm not so proud as to turn away what I've been gifted. If anything, I want to shake the hooves of the mare or stallion responsible."

The woman standing over him lost her cool. "What you've been gifted!?" she yelled so loudly that his ears pinned themselves back in an attempt to muffle the shrill sound. He retreated back under her furious gaze until he was beside his insensate sister. "You lost your self-determination and your connection to your species! How are you gonna work a job like that? Not to mention you sound like you're brainwashed! What could be worth that?"

There the clearing of a throat on the other side of the privacy curtain, followed by the sound of two hooves hitting the floor. "That's quite enough, Kate," came the admonishing voice of Tara Weintraub. A moment later, the privacy curtain was pulled aside, and revealed a shorter figure than he'd been expecting. She looked like she was closer in size to a small child than a fully-grown adult, but based on the oversized hospital gown she wore and the way she seemed to hunch slightly, that was likely to blame on ETS. Her mane was fully green with a teal streak, and there in the middle of her forehead was a horn. "You know he can't help it. Before they cut the communications out of the Emergency Zone, a lot of the transformed ponies that still showed interest in sharing their stories online showed similar attitudes toward their transformations."

Although Nurse Kate looked a little less angry, and looked what she wanted to say something, but the comically short doctor pointed at the still-resting Jinxi as she came to stand beside her. "You ask what's worth it for him," she said in a sad-sounding voice. "She is."

With a shake of her head, the nurse frowned. "I don't understand."

Jacen looked less frightened now, looking from Tara—who nodded at him—to the pink-haired woman. "When I was in my mother's womb," he began in a monotone voice. His voice thus far had been relatively emotionless, but this was even flatter somehow. "I absorbed a sibling. I spent most of my childhood feeling like something was missing from my life, and I was subject to all sorts of health problems. It wasn't until my fully-developed uterus, without any other part of the female reproductive tract, started what all do that I found out about it and lived with the guilt. I was a chimaera... clumps of her cells and all over the place inside me."

The nurse regarded the still sleeping pony as a look of understanding crossed her face. ETS had given him a sibling, and cured him of his health problems. Even if the transformation could be reversed, could it even safely be used on him? She frowned, looking from the one pony to the other. The ethical implications of even trying that were kind of monstrous, as it would effectively kill one of them.

Looking for a change in topic, Jacen glanced from the nurse to his doctor. "It seems like everypony is further along than they should be," he observed with a smile. "Are there any other fully-transformed ponies in the ward?"

"Three besides you," Tara answered. "There's a pegasus mare and her earth pony filly, and a unicorn stallion. Transformations have been accelerating, although I imagine that might be because the number of infected so close together, or some quorum sensing function in ETS set to speed things up when infections reach a critical mass. By my estimate, everyone in this ward will be ponies by Thursday."

He considered this as he made his way over to the edge of the bed. "Could you lower the bed please?" he asked as he looked back up to the nurse. "I don't imagine jumping down will feel very good, and no offence, but I don't fancy getting picked up like a pet."

Nurse Kate reluctantly agreed and lowered the bed until it was only sixteen inches off the ground. Without further comment towards her, he hopped down with a quiet clomp. Although he was somewhat curious as to just how many infections there were in the region, he was interested in the other ponies and soon-to-be ponies. The only ponies he'd gotten to talk to lately were Peter and Gage via instant messages, Doc Weintraub, and whichever nurses or doctors worked here. Being that isolated during his transformation had felt like torture, and now he felt so much more social.

The white mare's final lesson echoed in his mind, "A pony never needs to be alone."

Luckily for him, when the nurse entered, she didn't shut the door all the way. By his estimate, he might've been slightly over two feet tall. That didn't make it very conducive to opening doors with his hooves. Handles would be barely doable if he jumped and tugged it down, but knobs would be out of the question. When everypony in the world transforms, we'll never have to think about doorknobs again. Just good old handles or latches. He only stuck around long enough to note his room's number: 418.

The ward's hall was surprisingly busy, with several infected members of medical staff and some orderlies coming and going from the other rooms. He caught more than one glare from members of staff as he stuck close to the wall so as to not become a tripping hazard. They all probably knew who he was, and they probably blamed him for their predicament. Soon, they'll all see.

Most of the rooms that he could peek into had pony in various stages of the transformation, but surprisingly all of them were at least at the ear stage. There was maybe one other pony as close along as Tara, but it was hard to tell whether they were a mare or a stallion by looking at them. Maybe if he went in close enough to get their scent, he might figure it out, but that seemed kind of intrusive, and he doubted the nurse helping the person back onto their bed would have appreciated his presence.

When Jacen did not find the fully transformed ponies in any of the other rooms, he sought out the day room. Most hospitals he'd ever been in had one. It made sense that he had a hard time finding it, however, as his wanderings had been done in avoidance of the nurse's station. When he finally strayed close enough to that bastion of adversarial stares, he found the day room in clear sight of it.

It wasn't much to look at. There was a TV showing a news feed, and although it was currently muted, he could see a ticker display announcing that communication grids in many of the ETS affected areas were taken partially offline for emergency usage. There were plenty of chairs present, but they were all a bit high for ponies and they didn't look all that comfortable. There was an older unicorn stallion who looked like he'd been forced into a patient gown seated on one of the chairs as a human might. He was watching the news, occasionally shooting glares at one of the nurses keeping an eye on them.

Seated in the middle of the room, trying to occupy a tiny green and red earth pony filly with some of those Little Golden Books, was an exasperated pegasus mare. He momentarily froze up when he saw her, but he couldn't exactly understand why. There was something about her that tickled an irrational part of his brain. Was it the glossy cerulean feathers on her wings? Or maybe the wavy straw-coloured mane? She tensed up momentarily when he entered, and he quickly filed that train of thought away when her magenta eyes met his.

"Oh, hi there!" she greeted once she relaxed. Strangely enough, he thought he caught a hint of a southern accent to her. "I thought I'd met everypony in the ward already. Did they just bring you in today?"

He shook his head. "I was actually the first pony quarantined here," he replied, feeling slightly embarrassed. Pretty much every pony and human in the ward had probably heard the screaming fit he'd had the other morning. "I was the one in room four eighteen with Doctor Weintraub."

The grumpy looking stallion glanced over, his beige ears twitching. "Them's some lungs ya gots on ya, b'y," he commented. The stallion's accent caught him off guard. Jacen had heard it once or twice since moving to this province, but he'd never heard it so thick. "Lord thunderin' Jesus... When you was screamin' fer tree minutes straight, I tought they was torchurin' ya."

That got a nod from the mare, now looking slightly wary again. "We're in the next room over. Your screaming scared Alexa half to death," she stated as she draped a wing over her foal, who nodded emphatically. "What was going on in there?"

Sparing them his life story, he instead gave them the Cliffs Notes explanation. He absorbed his twin in womb, ETS decided the twin cells were meant to be their own pony, and one human Jacen equals two ponies. Although both adults listened intently, it was clear the little filly had gone back to reading the Poky Little Puppy. They both seemed sceptical of his story, although he imagined the monotonous way he found himself speaking didn't really sell it all that well. Or it might've been that I look somewhere between the filly's age and adulthood."Again, I'm sorry if I frightened you all."

The mare smiled. "We're sorry you had to go through that," she said in a soft voice before prodding the little green filly. "Ponies always forgive, though, right Alexa?"

Little Alexa looked up at him with her own happy blue eyes before letting out a quiet, "Yep!"

It caught him off guard when the stallion added in a sage voice, "Ponies're kind."

That felt kinda odd. They were parroting the same ideas from the dream he'd had, but could it really be coincidence? No, they probably had their own dreams, too. Didn't Nurse Kate say something about some terrorist causing ETS? If the transformation of mankind was intentional, then perhaps that dream was some sort of piece to the puzzle.

Let's think about it rationally. ETS changed our species, but it has done a lot for people. From what I read online, it's reportedly curing all ailments in those it transforms. Those transformed weren't reporting any sort of body dysmorphia before the grid went down... It's even rid me of my nicotine dependence. That's definitely not something you do out of malice. Plus, if you can harness some previously unknown form of energy to create this transformative virus, a dream telling us how we can rebuild a society free of major strife doesn't seem far-fetched. Soon, everypony will transform and have that same vision...

"Are you okay, mister?" the little one asked, managing to use the edge of her hoof close the book. "You're making a funny face."

He shook his head as he brought a hoof up to his face and unscrunched his muzzle. "Sorry about that," he said with a smile as he made his way over to the bookshelf. "I was lost in thought. You all had the dream too?" The three nodded, confirming his theory. He wondered aloud, "I wonder what Jinxi will see in hers."

The pegasus mare seemed confused. "Who's that?" she said, watching him as he started looking through what was available on the shelves he could reach. "I thought you said you were in the room with Tara."

He blinked, and quietly admonished himself for not giving out her name—or his, for that matter. "You'll probably meet my literal other half, Jinxi, when she wakes up closer to evening," he replied. "She's one of the ones ponies online were calling night ponies."

With an astonished gasp, she glanced towards the hall where our rooms were. "She must've been the filly that was singing along with Alexa's lullaby on Thursday night! She has a very pretty singing voice, though I think she thought she was being quiet." Rising to her hooves, she joined him by the bookshelf. "I'm Chloe, by the way. Chloe Reagan." She inclined her head towards the stallion who'd already gone back to watching the silenced news. "That's Jordan Carruthers."

She offered up a forehoof, frog out, as if she intended to shake his hand. He lifted up his own and examined it. No fingers to grip, and shaking it up and down would be awkward. Then the sight of ponies tapping forehooves together like a high-five in the dream resurfaced in his mind. He gently thrust his hoof against hers with a firm clop, and said, "I'm Jacen Cadlow."

Author's Note

It is now the Monday of the third week of the ETS pandemic.

Props to anyone who can name the stallion's accent.

I love the delicious irony in what should be a rational pony falling into an irrational pattern of thought because of the mind trickery. That just leaves me to wonder if he'll inadvertently become a Shimmerist in the process or if Jinxi can put a stop to it.

Day 11: Part 2 - A Sister's First Steps

The moon lights the suburb bordering the woodland. All is calm, quiet, and good in the world. It's early in the evening, and Jinxi is perched atop a streetlight, gazing out at the orderly rows of tight-packed houses. In a yard down below, ponies and humans are gathered before a projector screen watching some sort of sport. When something momentous occurs, the group all celebrates together. Men hug their pony brothers in glee as the game ends.

Not a trace of pollution is in the air, despite cars zipping to and fro on the main arteries in the subdivision. The world is healing, and she happy to know that the more things have changed, the more they stay the same. When the cool autumn breeze whips her mane about, she allows herself a smile.

"It's beautiful, isn't it, Jinxi?" a huge winged mare comments as she glides to a hover beside the night pony. "All these ponies and people coexisting harmoniously."

The small bat-winged pony casts only a brief glance at her visitor, just long enough to take in her aurora mane and the horn atop her forehead. "Mmmhmm," she hummed in response, returning her attention to her vigil. "I couldn't have wished for better."

"Man and pony sharing the same space, living harmoniously—look at how happy it makes them," she observed. "Loving their neighbours despite their differences is a pony trait, but there is good in humans as well. A world together can be built, if only ponies reach out a hoof in friendship."

Something in the world shifted, and now Jinxi could hear a mare and a man calling out two different names from two different places. As the voices both draw closer, the speakers start calling out insults to one another. Blame and aspersions are cast back and forth, but from it all she got the gist of it; the man's son and the mare's filly never returned home for dinner, and for whatever reason the two had been forbidden from seeing one another.

"That hard-earned harmony and balance can quickly be toppled," the winged unicorn advises. "Should things come to blows, lines may once more be drawn in the metaphorical sand. Missing foals are helpless in the dark, and any number of creatures could find them."

Spreading her wings, Jinxi shoots across the sky and lands between the arguing pair. "I know you're both scared, but now is no time to be fighting," she announces, keeping her wings spread to create some space. "Your foals are missing out in the dark, all alone?" When the man, tall and dark-skinned, nods, the unicorn mare just begins to sob. "What are their names, and do they look like?"

After catching the names, description, places the two frequented, she advises them to get into contact with the police as takes to the air. Immediately, she reaches up to her throat mic to broadcast a heads up. "Night Patrol, this is District 5 volunteer Jinxi," she says. "A foal—unicorn filly, green, ten years old—and her human friend—African-American male, eleven—didn't come home this evening. Parents are getting in contact with the police now, but I'd like to request some more eyes in the sky. Over." After rattling off the likely places, she concluded, "I'm gonna start my search above the woods."

The winged unicorn flies alongside Jinxi, a smile on her face as several other night ponies can be seen taking to the skies. "Without technology like that, organising a rapid response would be next to impossible."

There is no response as she rockets towards the woods, but mentally Jinxi agrees with the mare. Instead of paying the much larger pony any mind, her eyes focus on the treetops and clearings in the woodland below. Even if magic could make the world a better place, and her night pony eyes could see so much better in the dark, the modern conveniences aren't something she could easily let go.

Eventually, she could pick up the crying and screams of scared children. Adjusting her course to take her toward the racket, she glances back toward the suburb to pick up a landmark: a water tower. "District 5, Jinxi here; I'm about three klicks due west of the water tower. I think I've got the missing kids." The snarl of a wild animal and the fresh cry of pain from one of the children chills her blood. "Send EMS and somepony from Fish and Wildlife, over and out."

She doesn't wait for a response. The moment she's over the clearing, she quickly analyses the situation. A mountain lion has the child and the foal backed up against a steep drop into a ravine. The boy's shirt is torn, a scrap tied around his forearm. Meanwhile the filly, levitating a tree-branch before her and the big cat and swinging it occasionally when it approaches, has a ragged scratch across her muzzle as her magical aura flickers around the branch.

At Jinxi's size, she can't hope to intimidate the creature, but she wouldn't back down. Night ponies are guardians, rulers of the night sky; what's an oversized house cat to her? With some quick mental maths, she takes up position directly above the big cat as it backs up. The boy points up at her and calls out for help as she sends herself into a high velocity dive.

It's not a moment too soon. Just as Jinxi's four hooves come crashing down on the big cat's back, shattering its spine, the unicorn's magic gives out. The mountain lion is driven hard into the forest floor with a pained yowl, and the night pony gracefully rebounds off of it, coming to land between the kids and the cat. She spreads her wings in a threat display as she bares what little sharp teeth night ponies have, but the animal doesn't get back up. It just lies there breathing in a laboured manner.

After help arrives and the children are reunited with their parents, the white mare appears beside her again. "To put ones own safety on the line for strangers speaks of bravery and compassion," she observes as, with her fetlock, Jinxi unclips a folding knife from her radio belt. Once everypony is out of sight, she closes on the animal and quietly grants it mercy. If the white mare's at all squeamish, she doesn't show it as the night pony ends the animal's suffering. "That you grant security to your fellow man and pony speaks of loyalty, and preventing suffering where possible—even to a dangerous predator—speaks of a great kindness." When Jinxi looks back up, the mysterious white pony adds, "It feels natural, being a protector, doesn't it?"

The small night pony considers this evening's events. Keeping the peace, and protecting others does feel right, even if she'd rather value this life that's been given to her. She nods as somepony from Fish and Wildlife appears on the scene, and takes to the air, quickly flying above the retrieval party guiding the children and parents back out of the woods to some waiting paramedics. "The boy and the filly will be alright," she declares as the stranger flies alongside her. "There'll be some superficial scars, but it could have been worse."

The mare shakes her head. "The physical danger has passed, but even now, this trauma has created a nightmare," she said, pointing out the filly—now draped across her mother's back, fast asleep. "Can you not feel the darkness of her dream? As a pony of the night, you have the power to protect not only their waking bodies, but their dreaming minds as well."

She could feel that creeping darkness, and it brought her disgust; she would not let it stand. Instinctively using her night pony magic, Jinxi reaches out and finds herself in the filly's dreams. The little unicorn is creeping about an unlit house house with no power. Everywhere she looks, she sees the mountain lion's eyes in the darkness, staring back at her, even if she knew the space to be occupied by a mundane object. She tries every pony-height lights which she passes, but none work.

The night pony follows along, immaterial to the dream itself. As the girl creeps down the stairs to the home's main living space, Jinxi knows what she must do. Drawing upon her connection to the dream realm, she pulls forth fleeting memories of the little unicorn's friends and family. Several ponies, humans, and boxes manifest in the darkness, waiting.

When the unicorn filly reaches the bottom of the stairs, the lights in the house all snap on at once, revealing a surprise party, complete with banners and gifts. Ponies and humans alike cry out, "Happy Birthday!" while party poppers spew confetti everywhere. From her unseen place at the top of the stairs, Jinxi smiles up at the winged unicorn beside her.

It was late in the evening when Jinxi awoke with a startle. Somepony had just stepped on the base of her—and now that she'd fully transformed, she had surprisingly little problem thinking of herself with that pronoun—tail, and she immediately jumped to her hooves. Her wings were spread, and she whipped her head low as she bared her teeth at the offending party with a hiss. "What's the big idea?"

The guilty party, a white earth pony colt maybe an inch taller than she was, gave her an apologetic look as he sat on his haunches. His forehooves were raised in a defensive manner. "Sorry about that, Jinxi," he replied in a monotone voice the filly didn't know. "I misjudged my jump up onto he bed, and I didn't exactly have anypony to spot for me."

Clicking her teeth at him, the young mare lowered her leathery wings as she recognised who he was. Slowly, he lowered his hooves. "Yeah, well... you gotta be careful!" she grumbled, extending her wings and wrapping them around the front of her as if crossing her arms. "I was having such a good dream, and you almost stepped on my mare bits."

Jacen's purple eyes widened, and a weirdly serene smile spread across his muzzle. "You saw the winged white unicorn too?" he asked. When she nodded, he hummed happily. "The other ponies that have finished their rebirth all saw her as well. What did she show you?"

When the two had been one, they'd never been particularly religious. The way Gage was treated by the people in his family's church when he came out had been atrocious; it bad enough that the idea of following any sort of given faith had been not all that appealing. So what was it about his weird sense of calm that made her eyebrow rise?

Slowly, she recounted everything she'd seen and heard in her dream. The delight in his eyes slowly faded as she told her tale. At first, she thought it was because hers seemed specific to night ponies, but every time she mentioned humans, he bit his lip. Slowly, his ears fell, and he asked, "Are you sure that is what you saw? Are you sure there were humans in your vision?"

She nodded. "I'm positive," she declared. "Everything I saw told me to protect everypony, and I guess everyone, that I could. That co-operation with humans was not only possible, but desirable. Why?"

He turned away to stare out the window, before heaving a sigh. "Jordan, Chloe, and her daughter Alexa..." His voice squeaked when he mentioned the second name. "Like me, they said they had visions of a world only inhabited by ponies, freed from the constraints of technology. There were lessons hidden within the dream, which the white mare helped us uncover. Did she not even mention the five tenets that were key to building a pony world? Not even things like 'A pony never needs to be alone?'"

Why did he seem so distraught when she shook her head? "To be fair, I was woken up, so maybe I never got to that part," she offered in a conciliatory voice as she sat down beside him and draped her wing over his back. "I'm more curious as to why there were humans in my vision and not in yours."

In reality, she was thinking something different. Although she liked the potential future she'd seen in the dream, something was nagging at the back of her mind. Showing an ideal world to everypony was one thing, but these lessons and tenets he mentioned sounded an awful lot like a form of mind control—an idea that made her angry down to her core. She couldn't see Jacen as anything but her twin brother, and the very thought that somepony had fucked with his mind made her want to... to... No, she couldn't resort to violence; something deep down told her that wasn't the pony way. But what if the pony way gets in the way?

When Jacen shrugged her wing away, and crawled across the bed to the pillow, she didn't follow. It was late in the evening, and her new pony instincts told her that he was probably getting super tired right about now. Keeping him up wouldn't be healthy... She'd probably get to spend more time with him in the early morning.

She forced herself to redirect her thoughts. This whole thing felt like some sort of night pony magic on a scale she couldn't quite fathom. Who was responsible for the vision, and what purpose did it really serve? Was it really just a benign nudge in a positive direction, or was there a more sinister reason behind it all? Hell, if they were so intent on making a world of ponies, why bother adding humans to my dream but not Jacen's or those other ponies'.

There were answers to be had, but she had no real way of finding out. Tarot cards were a fascinating distraction, but nothing more. Like some laminated pieces of cardstock could give actual, reliable information. There was also the option of the dream realm—the knowledge of which had been encoded into her brain either by the vision or her transformation—but despite what that vision showed, she got the distinct impression that she had to be asleep to actually access it. Beyond that, how did it even work? Could she even do that with this body that didn't match her—or rather, pre-transformation Jacen's—age?

Once she was sure her brother—Does waking up as a pony first make him the big brother?—was asleep, she glanced over at the table that had held their phone, and the tarot cards and book. It looked way taller than it had been, although that was definitely because somepony had lowered the bed to the floor for easier pony access. That same consideration had not been applied to the adjustable table.

Careful not to disturb Jacen, she hopped down from the edge of the bed without any difficulty. The action felt completely natural, as did moving a few steps away from the bed and the table and spreading her wings to take flight. It took a moment of bobbing up and down before she got the feel for hovering, altitude control, and movement. All of it was instinct, like her brain was wired to do it.

Getting objects off the table was a different matter entirely. She didn't have any fingers like a person's to grasp, and although she could maybe grip book with her fetlock and the right manoeuvring, it was a different thing entirely lifting a flat object off a table without any sort of fingernail. The book and the phone might be easiest, but the cards would be hard. Too much pressure, the cards shoot out, and too little and they just fall free.

Glancing from object to object, she decided the book would be simplest. With one hoof, she pulled it toward the edge of the table, and then quickly pressed it into her fetlock. She considered doing it in three trips, but she wasn't sure how long she was supposed to be able to remain airborne right now. She wasn't exactly feeling winded, but at the same time, flapping her wings constantly wold burn a lot of energy and she'd been asleep since Saturday.

Not wanting to scratch up the screen with her hoof too much, she instead slid her phone over to the edge. Then, with great care to keep her lips across her teeth, she grabbed the device in her mouth. As she drifted backwards toward the bed, she realised it was still plugged in. A careful tug later, the charging cable popped out and she was free to deposit her spoils on the foot of the bed.

As loathe as she was to admit, mouth manipulation was a pretty solid—albeit gross—pony method for moving objects. It was far easier for her to grab the deck of cards the same way she had with the phone. Definitely need to start putting it back in the deck box after, she thought as she grabbed the empty container in her fetlock. She nearly screamed when she turned around and came face-to-chest with an exhausted-looking nurse.

"If you needed somepony to lower the table for you, you just had to ask," she said in a quiet voice, glancing at Jacen's sleeping form and running a hand through her sparkling cherry-blossom mane. Why is there chocolate frosting in her mane? I can smell it from here. Now I'm kinda hungry. There were already fluffy yellow ears poking out from the top of her head, which twitched as a look of frustration crossed her face. A quick glance at the ID on her lanyard revealed her name was Kate, although it looked like somepony had also smeared frosting across the surface where her surname was located. "And please, no flying indoors. I've already had a tray of cupcakes inadvertently launched at me by someone who wasn't paying attention to her wingspan."

Jinxi blinked and then slowly landed on the bed, placing the items down a moment later. "Sorry." She rubbed the back of her own neck with a hoof. "You're probably gonna get that a lot." With a chuckle, she added, "The indoor flying thing, not the cupcakes. Growing pains, you know? Have wings, must fly."

Kate fixed the pony with a flat stare. "Riiight." The nurse didn't at all look convinced. "Anyways, I just wanted to warn you to keep it down if you're gonna be up all night. All the ponies are asleep like your brother, and even the other ETS patients and infected staff seem can't seem to stay up very late anymore." She let out a drawn out yawn as if to put emphasis on this fact. "Do you need anything before I clock off?"

With some consideration, Jinxi glanced at the room's entrance. "One, could you shuffle this for me right quick?" she asked. "Two, could you open that bathroom door before you go, and three, where can I get some food?"

That actually got a quiet laugh from Kate as she picked up the deck of cards and began shuffling it. "Finally, a pony with simpler priorities," she murmured. "All day it's just been those ponies waxing philosophical about these visions they've all had, and far-along patients talking about how much they can't wait until they're fully pony. Not you, though."

A toothy smile crossed the night pony's muzzle, eliciting a wince as the nurse spotted the sharp teeth—probably some sort of food-gripping and piercing evolution. "I haven't had enough time to process that sort of thing. Forget treating it like some sort of religious awakening," she responded, focusing on the deck. "Better to focus on the first level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The four S's."

Cocking her head to one side, the nurse regarded Jinxi with an appraising look. "I'm pretty sure it's Three S's," she shot back as she set the cards down. A moment later, she the nurse went over to the table lowered it to a level that could be reached by the bed. "And I could sure use a shower after this shift."

With a giggle, Jinxi reached over with her wing, using its sole thumb to drag the deck of tarot cards closer. "You forgot snacks, didn't you?"

Nurse Kate just smacked a palm against her forehead before walking away, shaking her head. "The charge nurse keeps a bunch of snacks under the counter in the nurses station," she said tiredly. She opened the room's bathroom door as she moved past, but paused in the door. "Otherwise, ask the night-shift nurses to see about getting you something. Oh, and beware Emma."

Waving goodbye to the nurse earned the pony an amused smile. She's a nice pony, she thought as the soon-to-be pony rounded the corner and slipped out of sight. I wonder if she's got her own room here since she's almost done? Or are they letting the staff go home now?

Snagging the pink ear buds off the table, Jinxi struggled for a minute to plug the cable into the phone's headphone jack with her wings' thumbs. Getting the buds into her ears were easier, and it didn't even take using her wings. Using one wing to wake up the display and enter her passcode, she put on the playlist she'd assembled late Thursday night. Poor Jacen's gonna need a stylus to work this now, if he even cares about tech tomorrow.

While Johnny Cash's The Man Comes Around began to play in her ears, she considered the questions she wanted to ask the cards. It was probably best to start with something simple first, before moving on to something more meaningful. What to ask, though? Her eyes flicked over to her sleeping brother and a smile crossed her face.

What is the reason for my brother's voice crack when he mentioned that mare's name earlier?

With a sweep of her hoof, she spread the deck across the linens. A curious sensation of something welling up inside her created a sort of tension in her belly as she hesitantly held that same hoof above the cards. Not paying it much mind, Jinxi picked a card at random... Dragging it closer with one hoof while the other pulled over the book. When she flipped over the card—the Two of Cups, upright—that strange tension vanished. Instead, a feeling of embarrassment and butterflies in her stomach rushed in to replace it as she flipped to the relevant page.

Let's see... As she read the relevant words for interpretation, she paused to glance back over at her brother with a smirk. Attraction, connection, close bonds... Pffft, Jacen? No way. We never once felt any sort of attraction to anypony as a person. Why would that suddenly change? The fluttery feeling left her when she pushed the card aside. That was weird.

The next question came to her immediately, piggybacking off the previous question. Is Jacen asexual? She'd wanted to try a yes or no question after having read about the method in the book, but hadn't thought of anything fun to ask until now. If it's at his expense, it's technically at mine too, right? No odd feeling overtook her this time; she just reached out and pulled a card over to reveal XV - the Devil. According to the book, rather than look at the meanings based on it's position, you're supposed to tally up which meanings are positive and which are negative... She did some quick counting and shook her head. Hard no, huh? Not sure I buy that, but okay.

With the silliness out of her system, she pushed the card aside to join the previous one and cleared her mind. What kind of pony is responsible for the vision? A dull throb had begun to assault her temples as that tension-like sensation returned. As she reached for her answer, a stray thought occurred to her. What if she wasn't actually picking? Could pony magic influence such a thing, or was she being silly?

When she flipped the card over to reveal the upright Nine of Swords, and the tension deep inside her fell away, she nearly screamed as a flood of emotion overcame her senses. An intense fear of... she didn't know what... hit her first, followed by so much anxiety that she nearly threw up on the spot. Is it my imagination, or is it dimmer in here, like the shadows are growing all around me? Finally, she was assailed by a feeling of loneliness so strong that everything began to feel like a waking nightmare.

Jinxi didn't even need to read the book to interpret its meaning. It had all but been seared into her mind... Instead, she tore her hoof away from the card. Pain not unlike somepony smacking the bottom of her hoof with the narrow side of a yardstick quickly followed, eliciting a pained squeak. All of those nasty feelings, save for the anxiety, left her. "What the fuck was that?" she whimpered.

Her head was throbbing with pain now, and it wasn't entirely clear to her if she could properly fly even if she'd been permitted to. That was a shame, because she could use that sort of confidence right about now. No matter the fact that her stomach was most certainly empty, it had decided that it needed to be purged. That left her to pause the music, remove her ear buds, and stagger off the side of the bed. She was forced to all but crawl over to the bathroom because her legs wouldn't hold her up.

The moment face head crossed over the edge of the toilet bowl, time went all fuzzy. It felt like she'd been praying to the porcelain god nonstop for several minutes, but she knew that it couldn't have been more than a few moments. There was nothing to actually rid her body of—just bile. Even then, if it'd been a nonstop stream, she'd have blacked out at some point, right?

"Aww, you poor thing," came a voice from behind her. "Are you not feeling well, little one?"

Jinxi blinked as she peered over her shoulder. There was a human nurse towering over her, but she looked like she had no sign of infection, nor did she have on any sort of protective equipment like the nurses had previously been using, as if she held no fear of infection. Does she think I'm a foal or something? "Just threw up on an empty stomach," she groaned as she wiped her muzzle with a foreleg. Thankfully, it came away dry. "And my head is killing me... so I'm gonna go with no."

Clicking her tongue, the woman frowned. "That's no good, dear," she said, crouching down to pick the night pony up. A squeak of alarm and a hiss escaped her as one olive arm hooked around her back-side. When the other snaked under her forelegs and lifted her from the ground, she had to suppress the desire to bite the woman. "Goodness, and you're so light, too. Guess I'm gonna have to keep an eye on you while I do my paperwork, aren't I?"

To Jinxi's utter horror, the woman carried her out of the room and over towards the nurses station. Several other nurses stared at her captor as she carried the pony in like some sort of oversized cat. She even couldn't tell if the snickers from the other nurses were at the woman's behaviour, or her own expense. "I think this little pony got into something that didn't agree with her," the crazy ponynapper announced. "We should keep an eye on her."

When the evil, evil nurse finally sat down, Jinxi was perplexed as to why she had been draped across the woman's lap. The worst part was that she felt completely helpless, and didn't even have the energy to try and escape. Then, with utter cruelty, her captor began to gently scratch the night pony's chin with one hand, while the other rubbed her ears.

This is completely unprofessional, she thought as a strange, blissful sensation overtook her. Scratch the nurse being evil; the night pony's opinion did a one-eighty, as she decided this was her new favourite human. With a happy sigh, she closed her eyes and decided to just enjoy the physical contact her pony body apparently craved. So why am I okay with this?

Thanks to her big, tufty ears, it was no challenge for the night pony to overhear two other nurses whispering together outside of the angel's hearing. "If it wasn't for the fact that she seems to be tolerating Emma right now, I'd be filing a complaint about her behaviour," murmured a woman nurse with some sort of Asian accent. "So unprofessional."

A male nurse with no distinct accent replied to her with, "But that little bat pony looks like she's enjoying getting scritches... Maybe a bit too much."

Huh?

"What do you—o-oh my," the first nurse whispered back. "Should we tell her?"

"Hell no. I wanna see if she notices before someone walks in and sees this."

Is there something going on? It was getting hard to think, but at least all this pampering was making her headache disappear. And why's it starting to feel so drafty back there?

Author's Note

And so we see as Jinxi awakens that although both she and her brother share the same memories up until her first conscious moments, their personalities are not the same. Instead, it appears as though different aspects of the original's personality have been exaggerated to extremes and spread between the two.

Day 12: Night Shift, Counter-spell

It was hard to tell how much time had passed. Nurse Emma's scritches and ear rubs were exactly what the night pony needed; that headache never stood a chance. The nurse even eventually did get to whatever paperwork she had to get working on, although her free hand remained on Jinxi's ears. Eventually the other nurses seemed to just accept that this was happening, and started going about their normal tasks, pretending she wasn't there.

Good things never last, however. From the other side of the counter came a man's exasperated voice. "Perez, what the fuck are you doing?" The angelic nurse let out a startled noise that the night pony could easily have recreated, and the ear rubs came to a halt. "You promised if we let you work the ETS ward, you wouldn't do this shit." When Jinxi cracked open her eye, she saw a tall, dark-skinned man in a doctor's coat, pinching the bridge of his nose. The lanyard ID proclaimed him to be Dr. Avery Downey. "We managed to convince that lady not to sue when you pulled this sort of thing with her service dog. This is..."

The nurse—I guess her surname's Perez—let out a bit of a petulant whine. "But she was sick in four-eighteen's toilet, the poor little thing," she explained, as if that was actually justification for snatching me up and engaging in a non-sexual petting session. "I just wanted to make her feel better."

Dr. Downey—Jinxi now recognised that he was a man Jacen had seen on his first day here—sighed and glanced up and down the length of the night pony. "And her tail is raised because?"

Jinxi's eyes shot wide, and she immediately rolled off Emma Perez' lap. Even as the young mare's belly hit the floor, her tail whipped down to cover herself. The moment her cheeks flushed, the other two nurses in the vicinity burst out laughing. One was asking something about fur blushing between fits of giggles. The male nurse, on the other hoof expressed his disbelief that neither party in that pony petting session managed to notice.

Without waiting for the nurse to respond, Downey continued, "Just so you know, Jacen Cadlow is a twenty-five year old man—"

With an indignant squeak, the night pony interjected, "I'm Jinxi! Technically I was made from his absorbed' sister's cells." The man fixed her with a flat stare. A glance at a nearby clock revealed that it was now after midnight. "The original is still asleep on the bed, like all day ponies should be at this hour."

His jaw clenched."ANYWAYS," he growled through gritted teeth, fixing the nurse with a glare. Dude needs to take a chill pill. "Just... Remember that the ETS patients were human once, and are still clearly quite sapient, if frustrating to deal with. Don't let me catch you treating any more like you would a pet, or the union won't be able to protect you."

Turning to look down to the pony, he sighed. "Do you have an actual reason to remain out here, or can I trust you to return to your room?"

Jinxi looked back up at him. "Food," she said flatly, glancing at the space underneath the counter where there was an open box of trail mix snack packs and a minifridge. "I haven't eaten since we were put under on Saturday. Nurse Kate also informed me there might be snacks out here."

A few minutes later, the young pony was back on the shared bed in her hospital room with two packets of trail mix in front of her and a cold ginger ale sitting on the table beside her. Apparently, they might not be able to get their hands on anything she could eat until roughly five in the morning... so she'd probably end up eating an early breakfast and then conking out. This will have to do until then, she thought as she clumsily manoeuvred the still spread tarot cards back into a deck and putting them away in their box.

She was amazed with the ease with which she managed to tear open the top of the pack with her teeth. Immediately, the scent of salted seeds, nuts, berries, and chocolate assailed her nose, and a hungry groan could be heard from her belly. Eating it was another matter entirely, though. Jinxi couldn't quite grasp it right with her wing. In the end she just ended up having to hold it with her lips and prop it up with a hoof when she wanted to dump some into her mouth. It was super tasty, but awkward. Next time, ask for a cup or something.

Soon after eating the first pack of trail mix, she returned her attention to her phone. There'd been a text message that she'd somehow missed when she went to do her thing with the cards. It was from Peter, but it was dated Saturday afternoon. That made her frown, because there'd been no further attempts at communication since then. Just the one message.

Jacen... and Jinxi, I guess...

ETS is accelerating here, and everything's going to shit out here. There are gangs of people targeting ponies and those with the symptoms, making it dangerous to go outside. It wouldn't be so bad if we weren't running out of edible food here, and Gage could get around on his own. Truth be told, I'm not too far behind him. Another two days, and he'll be full stallion. Yeah, you were right. By then, though, I won't be in any state to drive. I could even be a pony by this time next week.

We've been keeping an ear to the ground for safe places, and we think our best bet for seeking shelter is in Greenwood Village. We'll try to get in contact when we can, but things have been spotty lately. Ah shit, there goes the power again. We gotta go. Stay safe you

It worried her that there were people attacking ponies and ponies-to-be. She couldn't be there to protect her friends—and damned if being the protective one wasn't odd compared to her pre-transformation personality—if they got attacked. The mere thought of her best friends, her brothers from other dams, getting hurt got her hackles up. A lot of it she attributed to the protective instincts of her night pony nature, but Jinxi couldn't deny that there was a degree of possessiveness behind it. Ponies being in danger was bad enough, but much like the thought of it affecting Jacen, her colts being in danger was magnitudes worse.

There was no romantic or sexual intent behind it, so far as she could tell. It felt more like... because of all they'd done to support Jacen growing up, she felt indebted. That was why; they were hers to protect. At least, she hoped it was the case. If she did somehow end up having those sorts of feelings for either, it wasn't gonna end well. Gage was as gay as the day was long, and she was a filly. Pete, on the other hoof, she had no idea what way he even swung. He could've been secretly lovers with Gage, and she'd never know.

With agonizing slowness, she managed to tap out a message.

Jinxi here. When this is all over, I'm gonna try to convince Jacen we should move back to Colorado. You guys are our family, and family needs to stick together. I'm gonna be ultra pissed if I find out you two got hurt 'cause I wasn't there. Keep safe, colts.

Just as she hit send, an odd feeling hit Jinxi. Something nearby was all but crying... but it was her night pony nature that was screaming at her to seek it out. Admittedly, she was kind of curious, because it almost felt like what she'd experienced in that vision. The only way she could describe it was some sort of magical pull that evoked the thoughts fear and dark.

Before she even had time to consider, she was down on the floor and walking into the hallway. She looked around for a moment, her ears trying to catch some sort of hint of sound. There was whimpering and plaintive cries in the next room over, and her weird night pony sense was pulling her in that direction. Unfortunately, that room's door was closed.

Though a nurse had taken notice of her, she ignored the man as she spread her wings. With a great downward thrust, she lifted off. Once she gained enough height to peer through the door's inset window, she glanced between the two beds, trying to pick up on the source. A small earth pony filly with a green coat and cherry-red mane lay nestled against a pegasus mare's belly. Between the facial twitching, the shivers, and the whimpers, it was clear that the foal was having a nightmare.

"Poor kid's been having nightmares since she and her mother were brought in," the guy commented as he walked up beside her. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that he was probably thinking unfriendly things because she was flying indoors, but he seemed to have more patience for her than Kate did. "I didn't realise your hearing was so good as to hear her from your room."

The night pony forced herself to keep a calm expression. Every instinct was telling her to help the filly, but she didn't know how. "Night ponies protect at night, both from physical harm, and nightmares," Jinxi responded, unable to keep a bit of frantic energy out of her voice. "I need to help her."

As she used her forehoof to manipulate the door's handle and push it open, she found herself unable to move forward. The night pony snapped her head around, baring her teeth, as the nurse had grabbed hold of her tail. "You are not going to harass other patients when they're trying to sleep," he said in a low voice. "Return to your room."

A hiss escaped her as she rounded on him. "Did you not hear me?" she whispered back at him, smacking his hand hard across the knuckles with her hoof. He immediately released her tail with a grunt of pain and stepped back, allowing her to float backwards into the room. "I'll do my job and you do yours."

Paying the man no further mind, she carefully landed beside the sleeping mare and her foal on the bed. She contemplated how she could possibly help, but she came up with nothing. Her dream that evening had been interrupted, so it was possible that knowledge had never actually been imparted. Still, she had to do something.

Sucking in a deep breath, she nestled down, her legs folded beneath her. Using her left wing to gently caress the filly's side, she had an idea. So far as she knew, this was the only child that had been transferred here, which meant this was the filly a mare had been singing Take Me Home, Country Roads to as some sort of lullaby.

As Jinxi began to hum the melody to the song, the foal seemed to calm slightly. That said, it wasn't entirely working. The creeping dark presence enshrouding the sleeping pony's mind was still there, plain as day to her. There was no magic rising up within her at her desire to enter the filly's nightmare and bring it to an end. Even if she was soothing the child somewhat, her inability caused her to experience no small degree of guilt and shame.

Just as she was about to give up, she felt it... Magic—somepony else's dream magic, she instinctively knew—and the momentary trace of another's presence. It only lingered for a moment, but she was almost certain that somepony who actually knew how to do her job had vanquished the nightmare for her. Then, just like that, the filly stopped shaking. There was a contented sigh, and her facial expression softened.

Jinxi withdrew her wing, and her heart nearly broke when the still dreaming foal tried to grab hold of that long wing-finger. Quickly schooling her own expression, she turned to face the nurse as she crawled over to the edge of the bed. He waited until she hopped down off the bed and exited the room before letting out an exasperated sigh. "How the hell did you manage to calm her?"

"Night ponies protect," she deflected in a tight voice. "It's the purpose ETS gave us."

She brushed past the man, and rushed back to her room. That guilt and shame was eating away at her mask, and if she didn't get out of sight quickly, somepony was gonna see. I can't let them see me cry, she admonished herself as she pushed the room's door shut. Night ponies are strong! We're protectors, not crybabies...

Rather than join her brother on the bed and snuggle up against him—as much as she wanted to do—she sought someplace else to sulk. She spotted a space above a storage cabinet that could easily fit a night pony. It took no effort for her to fly high enough to climb atop the cabinet. Even as she curled into a ball, burying her muzzle in her forelegs and pulling her wings over her head, she could feel the tears coming.

As she finally broke down, she wondered why this was such a big deal... She'd failed once, but that wouldn't mean she'd always fail. Besides, there was more to protecting than just making sure they got a good night's sleep. But you failed to protect her, she told herself. You're just a little kid yourself now. You can't help anypony.

Something was poking her. "Wake up, you!" somepony called down below. This was followed up with something jabbing her in the side, just behind her wing joint. "Wake up and get down from there, now."

The night pony cracked open her eye and lifted her wing. There was a dark blue unicorn mare with a fluffy green and teal mane standing there, a broom levitating in front of her. A pair of glasses rested atop her horn, but what drew her in were the narrowed golden eyes looking up at her. Probably trying to decide if she's gonna poke me again. Jacen was right there beside the doctor, looking up at the night pony with an annoyed, somewhat dejected look. "'s daytime, Tara," she slurred, putting the wing back down to shield face. "Night ponies don't do day."

"Come on, Fussyfangs, something important's happened!" her brother said. "You can sleep more after the president makes his address."

The night pony groaned and stood up, stretching her wings. "He's not my president, and my name's not Fussyfangs," she mumbled, lazily jumping off the cabinet and flapping her wings to slow her fall. "The heck is so important that you gotta torture me like this?"

Jacen just glared at her, looking like he'd been sucking on a lemon. "ETS is over," Tara answered, since he seemingly wasn't gonna tell her. She set the broom down beside the cabinet. "I don't know how yet, but it's apparently not going to infect and change anypony else. Everypony still mobile is waiting in the day room."

That definitely got Jinxi's attention. "Gimme a moment to use the restroom and I'll catch up with you." She felt their eyes on her as she lifted off again and flew into the open bathroom door. When they didn't at all move, she made eye contact with her brother and settled on the toilet seat. "Don't make me make this awkward to assert dominance." She waved her wings in a shooing motion. "Go on, get."

They quickly left her alone when they realised that she wasn't bluffing. Minutes later, she joined them out in the day room. Not counting herself, her brother, her physician, or the mare and her foal from last night, there were six ponies in the room. Nine more were on the cusp of entering their transformation's mobility-impinging state. Nurse Kate was also there, now looking as small as Tara had been the previous day.

Everypony was staring up at a TV mounted on the wall. There were interviews about the apparent end to ETS playing, but there was no indicator as to when the president was apparently gonna make a public statement on the matter. Almost every single pony that was interviewed had a different opinion. Some were scared they'd be forced to turn back. Others seemed angry, especially at humans that had spurned their help. Yet more were happy for their human neighbours, if for no other reason than they need not be afraid. The only general opinion that was shared by a vast majority was that none of them wanted to turn back.

Why shouldn't they be scared? So many of them consider their transformation a gift, Jinxi thought as she came in to sit beside her brother. I wouldn't exist without it. Even if there really was roughly half a billion ponies around the world, there was still sixteen humans to every pony, and that was nowhere close to an even population spread. We'll be a minority among our former brothers, and I fear that not all will be so accepting that this is how the world is now.

There was, of course, also the fear of the humans. There'd been reports of violence towards ponies and the infected all across the continent... Peter had even mentioned some in Denver. It was a result the natural human fear of the unknown and strange that drove some of it. Ponies were an unknown quantity, and they were different. What had once been a trait intrinsic to survival now risked destroying something beautiful.

There were also mention of marks appearing on the flanks of ponies. These marks—the term cutie mark was used consistently to refer to them in those reports that mentioned them—apparently either codified or represented a pony's special purpose in life, or some talent unique to them depending on who was asked. The rumour was that if a pony found their meaning in life and received their mark, there would be no going back for them.

Nearly every one of the transformed ponies in the room besides Tara, Jinxi, and Jacen, expressed a desire to get a mark. Even the little foal the night pony had failed to help last night couldn't help but gush at the idea of finding their special talent. The doctor, on the other hoof, wasn't sure that she wanted to remain a pony. Whether she would even be allowed to retain her medical license was her biggest concern.

There wasn't any going back for Jinxi and Jacen. Neither believed that their transformation could be reversed without killing one or the other. That said, despite her failure last night, the leathery-winged pony thought it was possible that she was onto something as far as marks went. That weird stuff last night with the cards left a lingering feeling nagging at her. There was no denying there had been some odd happenings, but there wasn't enough information for her to go on. Then again, if her purpose in life was getting migraines from cards and ending up vomiting, maybe she'd pass on it.

As time drug on, Jacen found his sister leaning against him, as if staying upright was the only thing keeping her awake. He felt guilty keeping her up like this, especially with the little episode he had the previous evening, but this was important. If ETS really was over, and all this news wasn't just response to hearsay, he might have to reconsider how he felt about everything.

There was also the matter of Chloe throwing the odd glance in his direction. She was a nice enough mare, but he knew very little about her. Her expression was also hard for him to read, especially once Jinxi's head started resting on his shoulder. It made him feel so weird; as a gambler, he was very used to having an easy time gauging people.

Finally, after a commercial break, the news channel was showing the press room in the White House. The President of the United States stood behind a podium bearing the presidential seal, waiting a few moments to make his address. It wasn't immediately noticeable, but even he hadn't been able to avoid infection. Both his hair and eyes were a lot more silver than was natural on a human. Jacen was disappointed that the man hadn't been fully transformed; if he had been, the man would have been a powerful figurehead for the ponies in the United States, possibly even somepony to rally behind.

With her mind more geared towards the safety of others, Jinxi found herself thankful that he wasn't fully transformed. She remembered the text Peter had sent, about gangs of bigots attacking ponies. No way those sorts of people would accept having a pony lead them. Plus, the hyper-religious portion of the population probably viewed this as a punishment for sinners. A pony president would be the Antichrist to them. There'd be civil war over whether a pony was legally allowed to be president, regardless of whether he was an American citizen.

It was better that he had just one hoof in the door, so that he'd have compassion for the transformed, while still being human enough as to not agitate the bigoted.

"My fellow Americans, both human and pony, and all those tuning in around the world," he greeted the cameras. "Today marks the official end of Equine Transformation Syndrome. I know many of you are confused, scared, and have questions. I am here to answer them to the best of my ability."

The twins considered his opening statement. 'Both human and pony' implied that he considered those who transformed to still be American citizens. It inspired hope that those changed would not lose their civil rights. That quickly fell to the wayside, however, as he began his explanation of how ETS came to be. Everycreature in the room fell silent as he confirmed the fears of many; ETS was an intentional act of terrorism.

That's where the explanation got weird. A pony from another world, identified by the name of Sunset Shimmer, had spent the last twenty years hiding among them. In that time, she'd been preparing to unleash this pandemic upon the world with the intent of turning every human on the planet into her species. Why, though?

Just when they thought it couldn't get any weirder, natives from Sunset's home world made contact and pledged to aid in bringing about the end of Equine Transformation Syndrome, as well as aiding in the apprehension of Sunset Shimmer. It was actually phrased that Shimmer had been eliminated, and most of the ponies present couldn't stop from gasping. Even Jacen had done so.

The government was choosing not to put the blame for Sunset's actions on the ponies of this other world. The pony responsible for all of this had been branded a criminal before ever coming here. Before facing justice, however, she faked her death and escaped to Earth. These ponies—these Equestrians—discovered her survival and plot by complete fluke, but took it upon themselves to aid nonetheless.

Diplomatic relations were already being opened, and the Equestrians had already pledged to find cure for ETS's effects. They were even advocating for the rights of the transformed. With that sort of pressure, the president expressed that United States government was taking a zero-tolerance stance regarding violence toward ponies.

"Ponies are kind," stated her brother, earning a chorus of voices repeating it. "They knew nothing about us, yet they put their necks on the line for us." Then he clopped his forehooves together, jostling his exhausted sister. "Would humans do the same? Even now, these ponies advocate for our continued well-being. We should aspire to be more like them!"

While ponies in the room let out a cheer, and the president started talking about FEMA relief workers, Jinxi pondered what the transformation had done to Jacen. He seemed almost reverent about these Equestrian ideals from his vision and mimicking them, but he also seemed confident in his line of thinking. Where was the scepticism and the stoicism? Had their mind being split in two done something for his charisma that made these ponies agree with him? Or were they all really brainwashed after all?

By the time the alien pony, Princess Twilight Sparkle, appeared on the screen, the night pony was unable to remain awake. She ended up missing the reactions from the ponies in the room, especially those who had been exposed to a vision of a world with no humans and eschewing the old technology, when the princess shared her admiration for Earth's culture and technology. Jacen especially had been surprised, as he incorrectly assumed that a pony from another world would want them to spurn technology in favour of magic.

The princess was quick to assure everyone that her government had no foreknowledge of Sunset Shimmer's designs for this world. Prior to escaping to Earth, she had been facing arrest for attempting to do the same thing to a foreign power. She begged for everypony's forgiveness.

Ponies always forgive, Jacen thought. The rest would have as well. They wouldn't have had a choice. It wasn't nearly as happy it started out as. Holes were starting to form in the faith he'd built in the vision he'd been given, the longer he listened.

Although the winged unicorn was trying to hammer in that Sunset had nearly succeeded, to his ears it sounded like praise for the mare's genius. But for some lucky breaks and Twilight's own interference, all would have become ponies. It made him admire Sunset's planning all the more. There were even aspects about the spell—for that's what ETS truly was—that were beyond even the Equestrian's knowledge.

He wanted to be angry at the mare for interfering—for stopping this world from being uplifted entirely—but then she said something surprising. Despite not being her ponies, she wanted to champion their ongoing well-being. She would not tolerate anything more being done to the transformed against their wills. Even if there is eventually a cure, she won't force it. She was advocating for choice—something Sunset had never given them. Ponies are generous.

As the interview came to an end, he actually did find he had some doubts... and what his sister had mentioned last night returned to the forefront of his mind. The princess hadn't gone into why Sunset Shimmer had done all of this, which meant that she either was not privy to the answer, or the answer was too terrible to put into words. Neither thought was very reassuring.

For that matter, what would one pony need with eight billion ponies? Did she intend to rule over this new world of ponies? Were they just pawns intended to be spent removing threats to home? How could she even assure obedience for that many people? The answer is obvious, you change them to make them more pliable, he decided. I have these instincts that are telling me to work the soil to help provide, to build a pony society. If the instincts were strong enough, a pony might even be too busy to think about rebellion.

He frowned as Jinxi's insensate form slid forward slightly and fell across his forehooves. Last night, she said her vision showed humans and ponies working to coexist, He leaned down and nuzzled the side of her head with a soft smile. "You already had some idea, didn't you?" he whispered to himself. "The vision was originally meant to make Equestrian values seem like the best choice... to give us our objective when the world collapsed, but in just the span of a few hours it had been changed, because Princess Twilight's ponies knew the message wouldn't work right in this new world of both ponies and humans..."

A cerulean feather prodded him in the side, and he nearly pushed Jinxi off of him in surprise. When he turned his head, he saw Chloe standing beside him. Little Alexa was a little ways back, once again reading one of those Little Golden Books. "You looked lost in thought," she whispered. "What's on your mind?"

The young stallion considered his words carefully. "Do you think... that the want to emulate the values shown in the vision is natural?" he asked, slowly pulling one hoof out from under his sister's head. "Or is it just because we were made to want to follow those tenets and lessons?"

With a shrug, Chloe sat down beside him. "I don't know," she admitted. "I have all these new things in my head telling me how to use my body. When I was a human, I hated flying, and flying home from Denver last week is probably how I caught the virus. Now, I'd like nothing more than to have the open skies at my wingtips; just being kept inside is driving me crazy." With a huff, she lowered her head. "I don't hate the idea of flying for fun, but now that you mention it, I can't help but wonder if that's just natural to the body, or if she made us think it, just like that dream."

His night pony sister let out a tired snort and murmured, "What matters isn't what you're told ta believe; it's what ya choose when ya've had time ta think." She rolled off his other hoof and used her wings to once more shade her face. "Glad you're thinking critically again... was worried you really were brainwashed..." With one last yawn, she added, "The tenets you mentioned don't sound harmful... Keep'em if you like'em. What's important is it's your choice, not hers." Then, Jinxi started to softly snore.

A smile crossed his face. "Little Miss Fussyfangs is right," he admitted. "Let's decide for ourselves how we live as ponies, instead of letting a vision tell us." His smile fell slightly, and he admitted, "There are probably some things that are hardcoded in, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Eyebrow raised, Chloe watched as he started to walk away from his sleeping sister. A moment later, he hopped up on one of the day room chairs and continued to watch the news. "Shouldn't we move her?" she asked, eyeing the rising and falling of the blue-grey pony's sides. "Surely she'd be more comfortable sleeping back in your room."

Not looking away from the TV, which was now replaying the earlier news feeds, he laughed. "Oh hell no," he said with a smirk, flicking his gaze back to Jinxi. "Have you seen those sharps in her mouth? No way I'm chancing getting bit if we startle her. You saw my startle reflex just a moment ago." Again, he snickered. "Nah I wanna see if someone—" He paused, remembering the presence of Chloe's daughter. "—effs around and finds out."

The mare slowly looked back and forth between the unusual siblings. "Really?" she asked, ruffling her feathers before going over to sit with her daughter. "She seemed like such a sweetie when she wandered in last night and soothed Alexa's nightmare."

Jacen turned his attention entirely to the pegasus mare, casting but a momentary glance at her daughter. "She did what?" he asked, unsure if he'd heard her correctly. That struck him as an odd thing. Why had she wandered in there in the first place?

"Yeah, maybe twelve thirty, I woke up hearing her arguing with one of the nurses outside my door," she explained. "She was saying stuff about night ponies protecting the dreams of others, and how it was her job. Then she flies in, lands on the bed beside us, and starts to hum John Denver while gently stroking Alexa's side. I think she was doing some sort of night pony magic, because after a while, my filly settled into a peaceful sleep, and your sister left without a fuss."

The first thing to come to his mind was 'Ponies are kind'. The second thing to come to his mind was the thought of how creepy that would sound if this had involved humans instead of ponies. Looks like she has her own programmed instincts to compete with too... I just hope they don't get her into trouble.

While the pair conversed and the foal continued to read, Kate re-entered the day room. The moment she saw the night pony asleep in the middle of the floor, the shrunken nurse held up her hands and stared at them, before glancing at the pony. Seeming to consider this for a moment, Kate instead walked over to the nurse's station and said something to a nurse. When Kate returned, a tired looking male nurse stared down at Jinxi and muttered something that sounded like "Little weirdo."

Jacen began to smile as the man reached down to pick her up. There were a few other ponies in the room who'd heard Jacen's earlier comments about what he expected would happen if someone disturbed her. All of them turned to watch with interest. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warned, knowing fully well what was about to happen. The nurse ignored his warning, sliding one hand under the little mare's chest. The other slid around her rump.

With an indignant shriek, she bit down hard on the man's forearm. "Ow, god damn it!" he cried as he pulled back and tried to put pressure on the already bleeding puncture marks. "That's twice you've attacked that arm. What did it ever do to you?"

Even as the male nurse pulled away and Kate fell backwards in surprise, the night pony hopped to her hooves, shuffling back a couple of times. With her wings spread and her head low, it almost seemed like she was conscious, but after a moment, she just started to sway and look around with unfocused eyes. Jacen cackled as she took to the air and lazily landed on top of the bookcase, only to immediately curl back up and begin to snore again.

Chloe couldn't quite resist giggling either. "I think it's because you touched her hindquarters," she teased. "I'd probably be upset if somepony touched my flank while I was sleeping, too."

Author's Note

Note: I can't remember if I previously stated the change in Dr. Weintraub's eyes or not. From now on, they're amber. If I did, lemme know where so I can retcon it. Otherwise, ignore this note.

Cycle 2: Day 1 - Marked

It'd been almost five days since the President of the United States declared the end of Equine Transformation Syndrome. In that time, restrictions on the ponies in Jacen's group slowly relaxed. Chloe and the pegasi were finally allowed to go outside and fly, while Jacen, Alexa, and the other earth ponies were given supervised time outside in the Veterans Memorial Garden. Although the group's first thought was to figure out weather manipulation and earth pony magic, they recognised that it would not be appreciated if they converted the garden into a farm.

The first thing they'd all realised upon having their restrictions relaxed was that a distinct shortage of staff in the hospital. Despite their best efforts, containment of the virus to the ward had not been successful; the late revelation of an infected individual's hair being the ETS transmission vector had resulted in rampant spread of the precursor flu through the hospital and the city. It seemed like the only ones still present were those who'd already gotten over the flu but not yet started showing, or those very few fringe cases of immunity.

It also meant that food was becoming more scarce due to absenteeism closing down all sorts of retailers and hampering deliveries of food. Somepony had straight up gone to a farm on Thursday and brought back several two-string hay bales. None of the ponies in the ETS ward were all that amused because it was about as flavourful as pre-chewed bubblegum, but tolerated it because it at least edible. That it allowed the other food reserves to go towards the other patients kept them happy; it was generosity and a kindness.

Jinxi, on the other hoof, didn't get the opportunities the day ponies got. As a nearly strictly nocturnal pony, she was up as the sun started to go down, and if she pushed herself, she could make it as far as nine in the morning before things got hard for her. As a result, she only got maybe six hours each day where there were opportunities to interact with her brother. Even then, neither really had any idea how to act with one another; they had an adult mind, but as ponies their bodies were definitely not fully-grown. Plus, they used to be the same person, but they were quickly noticing both were evolving in different directions, which made it hard to relate.

For the most part, the brother was serious, knowledge-oriented and—for the most part—logical. He could express himself just fine, and had his own moments of mischief, but his emotions were more guarded and he rarely spoke outside his 'new normal' monotone. Jacen still had a degree of obsession with cleanliness and order, but it was thankfully not in an extreme germaphobic state. It was that alignment towards organisation, however, that allowed him to get permission for the day ponies to 'wrap up winter' in the garden and bring it to life early.

The sister was more whimsical than the original had been. She more openly expressed her emotions—even if she didn't always intend to—and seemed more drawn to experiences, rather than facts. That wasn't to say that she was less intelligent as a result of the transformation, but rather her priorities had shifted. Rather than analyse the actions of the terrorist that had created ETS, she was simply grateful that the virus had given her life. She was perfectly content to live in the moment.

There was a tension building in her, however. She had a drive to protect, but nothing she actually could. Her pony charges were perfectly safe where they were. The best she could get was patrolling around the hospital at night, and trying to help out however the nurses and hospital staff would let her. She couldn't do much as a volunteer. They were hesitant to let her loose in the NICU to provide physical contact and affection to newborns—even if they would probably love fluffy pony snuggles—and a lot of patients were kind of hostile towards ponies... especially those showing early signs of infection. Being a ~~gopher~~ courier for staff was about as best as she could get.

Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that her shifted priorities was creating her own internal conflict. As much as she wanted to play, explore, and live her new life to the fullest, her night pony instincts were making things difficult. Each night, she ended up restless if she wasn't doing something to protect those around her. Every time Chloe's filly had a nightmare, she attempted to soothe her, but her continued failure to fulfil her purpose just made her mood worsen.

Despite the sun streaming in through the window, the room hospital room is unnaturally dark. What little light that is present casts shadows at impossible angles. To the night pony alone on the bed, it almost feels like they're alive and searching for something. That's stupid, though; shadows aren't alive, and have no eyes with which to watch. "Night ponies have nothing to fear from the dark itself," she whispers to herself as she looks over at the room's other empty patient bed. "We are supposed to chase away the things that lurk there."

Yet as she sits there in the unwelcoming room, she once-more feels the call of the call of the nightmare in the next room. No matter how many times she tries, Jinxi just can't seem to rid poor little Alexa of her nightmares. Still, I can't give up, she thinks as she hops down from the bed. The shadows part slightly, as though intimidated by her presence. If I give up on her, what good am I? I've got to figure out how to help her!

It's odd. As she exits the room, she finds no sign of any being, pony or human, out in the hallway, yet it feels as though she's being watched. The lights over the nurses' station are all out, as were all of the patient rooms. Yet somehow, as she stands before the open door, the room assigned to Chloe and her foal seems darker than the rest.

Despite the distinct lack of light in the room, she can clearly see the pegasus sitting upright on the bed. Her helpless gaze is fixed upon the sleeping foal at her hooves. "Why can't you help my filly?" the mare asks, glaring at the night pony as she hops up on the bed. "Why do her nightmares keep coming back?"

"I'm trying my hardest," she says before beginning to hum Take Me Home, Country Roads. She reaches out her wing and brushes the little foal's mane out of her face, slowly transitioning to gently patting the her side. Try and try as she might, though, the answer for how to alleviate the child's nightmares does not come to. All she can do is soothe the foal and hope that whoever has actually been helping her dreams hurries up.

The foal's condition only worsens, as her lullaby has apparently grown worthless. Her twitches slowly become more violent and she begins to sob out loud. It's not working anymore... It's only making it worse. I'm making it worse.

Then, to Jinxi's horror, Alexa goes rigid and her eyes snap open before she lets out an ear piercing scream. No pony should be capable for screaming this loud and this long without stopping to breathe, and yet it continues, on and on, until finally, she stops. It's over. It's finally over.

Though her eyes are open, the filly does not rouse. She continues to lie there, stiff as a board. It finally hits them that the foal is not breathing... Had Alexa's nightmare grown so bad that she had straight up died of fright? With a mournful howl, the mare throws the night pony from the bed, and then embraces her apparently dead foal.

She hits the floor hard, and when she scrambles to her hooves, her wing won't properly close. Even as she flees the room, the mare shouts, "How are you so useless that you couldn't save my baby!?"

"Feelings of helplessness and misplaced guilt are some of the most common causes of nightmares," Jinxi hears an unfamiliar mare's voice say as she picks herself up off of the floor. "I pity the ponies of this world for what Sunset Shimmer has inflicted upon them. This pony has nothing to feel guilty for, and yet she has been forced to bear the weight of the well-being for all those around her on her withers."

She glances around, but there's nopony other than Chloe there. The sheer vitriol in the grieving mother's eyes is enough to convince the night pony to leave, crying. Back into the hallway she goes, her eyes searching for the source of the voice. Unfortunately, the hallway is as empty as the first time she passed through.

"Hello?" she calls out, wandering through halls that feel much too long. "Where is everypony?" Her voice echoes all around her. "Jacen? Doctor Weintraub? Nurse Kate? Hell, I'll even take Nurse Emma... Just please, don't leave me alone here!"

The young night pony wanders down another impossibly long corridor. Strangely, she comes out in the ward's day room. Much like Chloe's room, even though it's pitch black in here, she can see Tara perfectly well in the middle of the room. The unicorn mare's back is to her, and she seems to be slouched over something, sobbing. "Doc? What's wrong?"

When Jinxi comes around the side of the dark-blue unicorn, she's unable to suppress a terrified squeak. The doctor is covered in blood, At her hooves lies the still form of one of the older ponies from their little cluster, an older stallion she'd seen Jacen conversing with over the days—Jordan, she thought his name was. It appeared as though he had been shot in the chest, and Tara had tried to help stop the bleeding, but it was clear that the stallion was dead.

Much like Chloe before her, Doctor Weintraub looked up at Jinxi with hate-filled eyes. "Where were you?" she screamed, grabbing the smaller pony up with her magic and pulling her muzzle to muzzle. "How are you supposed to protect us when you can't do anything to stop this. You can't even do anything to protect us during the day!?"

Again the night pony finds herself hurled through the air. This time, she's not so lucky as to leave unscathed. A scream escapes her as one of her wings is crushed between her and the wall. When she hits the floor, she can't quite get her hooves under her... and instead drags herself away from the mourning pony.

"In a way, this young mare is lucky," the unfamiliar mare speaks once more. Jinxi can't get a bead on where the voice is coming from. It seems to be nowhere, yet everywhere. "She could easily have found herself in similar circumstances to your acquaintance, but she's extremely conscious of the difficult position Sunset's shortsightedness has put her in. Many ponies—and not just night ponies like you or her—are now facing similar difficulties reconciling what their new instincts have them expecting of themselves with the world that they now live in."

Jinxi forces herself to her hooves, taking a breath to centre herself. It seems like everything in her life is crashing down around her, and despair is tightening like a noose around her neck. Even as hoofsteps can be heard somewhere in the halls, the little night pony shuts her eyes. This is wrong. This can't be real. Letting out a drawn out breath, it hits her. It isn't real.

"What's she doing now?" another voice asks. This one is younger, but still sounds more mature than Jinxi's body. In response, the diminutive night pony's ears flick. All around her, the shadows begin to retreat back to normal proportions. The endless hallways resolve into a single well-lit hall. "The dream is changing."

When Jinxi opens up her eyes, two figures manifest nearby. Both are pony-shaped, although not entirely present... like voids cut into the fabric of reality. The only hints as to the identities of the figures are their shape. One is taller, with what appears to be a horn and a flowing mane, possibly even pegasus wings based on slight protrusions. The other is harder to figure out at first; if they have wings, they are closed at their sides, so the only distinguishing features are the tufted ears—another night pony.

"She is becoming lucid," the taller mare says, turning to glance at her companion. "Although it may be more accurate to say that our presence has hastened her lucidity. Notice how our appearances are still undefined." The taller mare steps forward, wings fidgeting at her sides, and although her figure doesn't appear to possess any eyes at present, Jinxi still feels her gaze bearing down on her. "I apologise for our intrusion, my little pony. I am Princess Luna of Equestria."

Before the mare can introduce her companion, the dream jolts slightly. "Why are you here?"

"Why are you here!?" Jinxi awoke with a shout, startling the crystal pony who had been shaking her awake. There was the sound of something falling, and once she shook her white mane out of her face, she saw Kate on the floor, rubbing her flank. The mare had a pained expression on her face. With a glance at the clock, on the wall, the night pony frowned. It's only three in the afternoon for crying out loud! "Nnnh, why'd you wake me up?" After a moment's consideration, she quickly added, "Sorry about that, by the way."

She fixed Jinxi with a dark look as she puffed up her sparkly yellow chest fluff. Probably upset at having fallen off the bed. "Doctor Downey wants everypony to report to the day room for an announcement," Nurse Kate explained as the smaller mare stretched and hopped down from her bed. "Somepony from the government wants to speak to all of us who've transformed."

One the night pony was down on the floor, the pair made it out of the way out of the room and down the hall. As they went, the yellow mare's agitation became apparent. Something was bugging her, or maybe she even knew what was up and that was upsetting her. Regardless, the grouchiness from the mare was nothing new.

Kate had been growing more and more agitated as her days as a pony went on. She'd all but been demoted from nurse to patient, and all the while, the crystal pony wasn't even being allowed to resume her work. One evening, she even disclosed in confidence that she had no clue as to her purpose as a pony. Unlike the earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi, or even Jinxi, there was no magic lesson in her dreams telling her what a crystal pony did, and she didn't feel the same connection to the earth that Jacen and Alexa did.

It was something the small grey pony could relate with. Her own understanding of her night pony magic seemed almost faulty and as she was quickly finding out, the repeated failure to ease the sleeping minds was making her feel useless. On top of that, she knew deep down that she wasn't going to be able to protect anypony being this small. She was small, and useless.

"So what was that all about earlier?" asked the crystal pony as they walked. "You looked like you were having a nightmare."

Shooting Kate a guilty look, she frowned. "I can't do my job as a night pony and it's starting to get to me," Jinxi morosely answered, stopping short of the nurse's station. They were just out of earshot of Nurse Emma, who was leaned up against the Nurse's station as she watched all the ponies in the day room. "I can't cure nightmares, and if I tried to protect anypony through physical means, I'd just get myself hurt... then I can't protect anypony, and protection's really important in my new instincts."

To her credit, even though she quite literally looked down at her, the taller pony didn't seem to be looking down on her. Instead, she regarded her with a thoughtful smile. "If it's hard to ignore that instinct, it sounds like you need to redefine what protection means to you," she said after a moment's consideration. "You can protect somepony in other ways. Give them peace of mind... Give them a reason to smile. Protect them by helping them."

"I... I can try..." Jinxi murmured, following after the mare as she continued toward the day room. "I envy you, though. You don't have the instincts demanding you be a certain way... You're free to define what being a pony means to you."

When they reached the day room, Kate moved off to join Doctor Weintraub, while Jinxi took up a position near Jacen and his quickly growing circle of ponies. It struck her as funny. Despite his smaller stature, a lot of the ponies isolated to the hospital ward seemed to look toward him for guidance. He'd never been much of a leader prior to transformation, but his calm, rational demeanour seemed to put the others at ease. Advocating for them also seemed to earn their trust.

"Alright, that's everypony here," Jacen announced, looking from the tired night pony to suited woman standing beside Dr. Downey. "What's all this about?"

The woman looked down on Jacen, her lips drawn tight. Glancing at a clipboard held close to her chest, she asked, "Mr. Jacen Cadlow, aged twenty-five, correct? You and that one—" She gestured to the night pony sibling. "—are listed as the primary case for the region." When he nodded, she shook her head. "I'll be speaking to the two of you more tomorrow, but for now, my name is Grace Rowlins. I am here on behalf of the premiere's office to inform you of your immediate futures."

Everypony listened patiently as the woman explained what she meant. Now that ETS was over and most ponies' transformations had completed or otherwise reached as far as they would go, the provincial government was consolidating all of the province's fully and partially transformed into one place. As it turned out, until the Canadian Government could better understand ponies, their magic, and whether they could reintegrate with human society, they wanted to limit the 'potential damage' ponies could cause, as well as potential danger posed to ponies by angry humans. The plan was to grant the ponies a tract of land where they could build a settlement under the oversight of the government.

Until that land could be procured, ponies were going to be housed at a community centre on the other side of the harbour. They would continue to be permitted supervised outdoor excursions at this new location, and the earth ponies were even being granted garden plots in order to explore their affinity for plants. One of the other earth ponies in the group snarkily commented that they were really just hoping the earth ponies would be able to grow their own food and save them the money.

"So what, ya're gonna treat us like the Indians, an' stick us on some sort o' dinky little reserve?" the unicorn, Carruthers, commented. "Gonna seize our property too?"

Several of the ponies in the group turned to stare at him. Of all of them, only Tara, Kate, and Jinxi looked like they particularly agreed with him—maybe not the politically incorrect phrasing, but the sentiment, at least. The rest of them were glaring at him, as though the concept of returning to their old lives or keeping their old human belongings was an absurd idea.

"We're being given a space to live away from humans," Chloe argued, her wings spread in an aggressive manner. "We'll be safer in our own little community." To Jinxi's surprise, her other half stood right by the mare's side, nodding.

"I gots a family ta feed," Jordan growled. "I'm going back to work to provide for ma boys. Ya heard the American president; ETS is done and over with, so what the White Mare showed most of us ain't coming ta pass. Better to integrate and show we ain't a burden!"

Jacen stepped forward. "We're not saying we isolate ourselves forever." He was speaking in a soft voice. "I imagine we'll eventually be contributing a fair amount of produce, but if we can provide for ourselves for even just a few years, we can ease the strain on the supply chain that the flu and the ETS aftermath is causing."

While everyone else in the room started breaking into a heated debate, the tired night pony took to the air and began to languidly hover in front of Ms. Rowlins. "What I'd like to know is what happens to those of us who don't want to be put in seclusion. I'm an American citizen too, and I've got a pair of idiot stallions I need to check up on near ground zero. They haven't answered their phones or emails in days. Is the government going to hinder my movements?"

Grace fixed the tiny guardian with a flat look. "Ponies will be given an opportunity to opt out of this relocation, but may face some challenges. Those who remain in the cities won't be afforded any special privileges, and although you're all still citizens, any matters of discrimination may be slow to be addressed." Glancing from the night pony to her other half, the woman looked fairly surprised. "You and your 'brother' are a special case for matters that will be addressed in our meeting tomorrow, but there will be no active hindrance to the movement of ponies."

Some time after the question and answer period with Ms. Rowlins, Jinxi and Jacen returned to their room. The winged sibling was still somewhat lethargic as she belly-flopped onto the bed, even though it was now closer to five. Part of her really wanted to get back to sleep, but there was a lingering fear that she might just slip back into another nightmare. Until she could find some way to reconcile her inability to do something as simple as help a filly's recurring nightmares with the fact that she still needed to do something to 'protect' ponies, she wasn't gonna get a good day's sleep for a while.

There was also the matter of what she'd been woken up in the middle of. Although it had been pushed aside by the meeting with Ms. Rowlins, she hadn't forgotten that there had been somepony in her dreams. Not just one, but two! One claimed to be an Equestrian princess, but the other was some other night pony. They were definitely real, but they hadn't been anywhere near her. That meant that she didn't need to be around a pony to help with their dreams, right?

The question is... how?

"Penny for your thoughts, Jinxi?" Jacen interrupted as he hopped up onto the bed and settled onto his pillow. "You've been really agitated lately, and although you say it's night pony stuff, it's clearly getting to you." It might've been comforting had it not been for the fact that he was completely monotone. "What's on your mind?"

A frown creased her muzzle as she considered what to say. "Where do I even start?" she muttered. "It's all one big mess, Jace."

Ever the opposite of her, he smiled. "The beginning is probably the best place to start."

Regarding him with a tilt of her head, Jinxi considered it. "Well, let's start with night ponies..."

Slowly, she started to go over everything she knew about being a night pony. There was a lot of emphasis placed on protecting others, and the helplessness she felt in her inability to do so. Despite his monotone, he seemed genuinely shocked by just how much it was bugging her. That was to say nothing of the fact that people with firearms were a thing, even if they were nowhere near as prevalent as back home.

Then, she explained how night ponies were tasked with watching over the dreams of ponies. The fact that she couldn't even do anything for Alexa made her feel worthless... She was getting the credit for some successful dreamwalker helping the poor filly. Worse, it made her feel defective. She couldn't enter anypony's dreams, and she couldn't even protect her own.

When it was all over, Jacen regarded his sister with a thoughtful expression. "It sounds to me like you need to recontextualise what it means to protect," he said in a quiet voice. "You're putting too much emphasis on what the White Mare showed you to the point that you're trying to define yourself by it entirely. Rather than help the way your vision told you to, should you not find your own way to live up to those ideals? Do what feels right, rather than follow your instincts."

A sigh slowly escaped her lips, and she looked over to the table that held her deck of cards. "That's kinda what Nurse Kate was saying earlier," she replied. Something prickled at the back of her mind as she stared at the Tarot deck. "Maybe you're right."

Although hooves were still plenty unwieldy, Jinxi had been practising manipulating objects with hers. It was getting easier to grab an object in her fetlock, and she'd even managed to tear open a bag of potato chips once. Sure, it made a mess, but it was progress! "I got so caught up in it that I never even considered..." Jinxi quickly forgot that she was in the midst of a conversation, and reached out to the table. She had zero issues grabbing the deck box and freeing the cards. Shuffling them was a bit more of a challenge, but she managed with her wing thumbs. Fanning the cards out on the bed in front of her, she focused on what she wanted to ask. What is the source of Alexa's nightmares?

Rather than grabbing the cards with her hooves, she used the longest finger of her left wing to drag three specific cards into a side-by-side line. One by one she flipped them over, taking note of each card and their meanings. While she did so, she rubbed her chin in thought. Hmm...

"You're not seriously entertaining the thought that you can use those... those pieces of paper can somehow help ponies, are you?" her brother tried to interrupt. There was just the slightest bit of disbelief slipping past his monotone. "They're just cardstock. There's nothing magical about them."

She ignored him, instead focusing on the three cards before her. If Alexa is the upright Page of Cups, the dreamer full of innocence... Her eyes drifted from the first to the next. Then the inverted XVIII - The Moon is representing her fear and anxiety. The last card in the array was the Eight of Swords.

"She's afraid because she feels trapped," she whispered aloud. "Is it the isolation? Or does she feel trapped here?" Shutting her eyes, she tried to picture what could make a child feel that way while she slept. "Maybe it's not even the meaning of the card itself, but the symbolism... Eight... Swords..."

The number eight appeared in her mind's eye, surrounded by swords—four to either side. It was not a steady image, and it almost looked like the swords were wavering. Wait... It couldn't be something that simple, could it? Could she be afraid of spiders? As she focused on the mental image, a strange feeling washed over her.

When Jinxi looks down at herself, she finds that she is lying on the bed in the other room, snuggled up underneath the protective wing of Chloe. Wait, When did I open my eyes? Its rather odd—not because of the intimate contact, but because Chloe seems even bigger than normal. How could she have gotten there and become so small?

Unless I'm seeing something from Alexa's point of view, she thinks to herself, trying to sit up. Quickly, however, she finds that she is bound to the bed. In fact, it's like there are thousands of tiny somethings crawling across her coat. That's a lot of spiderlings.

Up above her, on the ceiling, is a massive spider. It fixes her with a baleful eight-eyed stare, hungrily flexing its pedipalps as it watches. Every so often, one of its many scimitar-like legs twitches. Yet that's all it does—it just sits there, watching.

Her eyes jerked open, startling Jacen. He'd gotten a lot closer since she'd closed her eyes, so she had no idea how long she'd actually been like that. Ignoring the disgruntled noise he made as he fell onto his back, she spread her wings and took to the air. Before anypony could even complain, she'd darted out into the hall, and over to the day room.

The small earth pony was seated on the floor, staring up at the television. Evidently, the Last Unicorn was back in rotation on some movie channel, and the foal was entirely entranced by it. Chloe was seated nearby on a cushion, reading a romance novel, turning the pages with her largest primaries. Rather than approach the foal, she landed quietly on the floor, nearby and slowly approached the mother instead.

"Oh, hey there, Jinxi," Chloe greeted as the night pony drew close. "I'd have thought you'd have gone back to sleep. Must be hard suddenly being stuck on a night-shift worker's sleep cycle."

Her tufted ears twitched slightly, and Jinxi glanced away from the larger mare. "It certainly makes getting woken up during the day a lot worse for me, but that's not important right now," she commented, looking back to her. "I was wondering if we could talk about Alexa for a moment."

Immediately, Chloe set down the book. Every muscle on her body appeared to tense, as if she was ready to spring into action. "It's nothing bad!" Jinxi quickly added. "Rather, I'm trying to get to the bottom of her nightmares... They keep happening, so I figured something in the real world might be causing them. Has she said anything to you about them?"

With a nod, Chloe said, "She told me once that there was a monster spider in our room, so I imagine that might be her nightmare." Finally, the mare glanced over at her daughter. "She's been terrified of them ever since her bastard of a father took her to a spider exhibit at the Museum of Natural History."

That confirms it, then, the night pony thought. She followed Chloe's gaze to the tiny green earth pony. That must've been her nightmare I'd experienced... but how did I do that? She's clearly awake now, so it's not like it could've been a live feed.

"I have a..." She didn't want to say that she'd had a vision of some sort telling her what the filly's nightmares were about, so she'd have to lie a bit. "I have a hunch as to what the problem is," she explained, tilting her head back toward the hall that led to their rooms. "Do you mind if I poke around in your room?"

"Why?" she asked, rising to her hooves. "What do you hope to find?"

"Presumably, the monster spider in your room."

As the pair walked back to the older mare's room, Jinxi felt... She didn't exactly know how to describe what she felt. Anticipation? Satisfaction? Elation? The negativity that had been wearing her down over the last week was finally starting to ebb away. It finally seemed like she was actually doing something to protect somepony. Kate and Jacen were right... I just needed to find my own way of protecting them.

As they stepped in, the night pony started going for all the typical dark spots in the room. Behind and under the furniture were the first places she looked, using her superior night-sight to take in everything obscured by shadows. Nothing was present on the ground level, but as she looked up towards the ceiling, she thought she could see the makings of cobwebs. I don't think they've really had anypony come through to clean since the quarantine, so that makes sense.

Gesturing to the spots she saw the cobwebs, Jinxi commented, "Even if we don't consciously notice things, our brain is always taking notes. I've been told that things in our environments can subconsciously affect our dreams." When Chloe saw the cobwebs, the mare gave a disgusted little shiver of her own. "Where there are cobwebs, there are spiders..."

Her eyes flicked over to the tall cabinet in the room. The space above it seemed to have more than a few strands of the webbing, and it looked like there were even a few colourful pony hairs caught up there. Taking off again, she flew up to where the biggest concentration was. Sure enough, nestled in where the wall met the ceiling was a decent sized northern yellow sac spider. She looked around quickly for any more of the little critters, but it seemed to be the only one in the room.

As she stared at it, an odd thought crossed her mind. Bats often feed on bugs, and though ponies can't seem to eat meat... She shook her head in disgust. To even think about eating another living being, even something non-sapient, was something that never sat well with her when she was a human. Although it might have been possible that she could eat the thing, it didn't mean she should.

Instead, she reached out with her hoof and out loud said, "Squish!" The pegasus mare let out a small gasp as the night pony slowly descended back to the floor. "Might want to get somepony in to take care of the cobwebs, but if you tell her the spider's been eliminated, she might rest easier."

Jinxi was rather surprised when Chloe immediately rushed over, an excited look on her face. "Oh my goodness! You've got one!" the mare exclaimed loudly, pointing to Jinxi's hindquarters with her wing. "You got one of those cutie marks like the equestrian ponies!"

All at once, it seemed like the entire herd of ponies living in the hospital wing had crowded into the hallway, trying to peer in through the doorway, even as Jinxi looked at it herself. Sure enough, there on her flank was a white card bearing a black stylistic eye—a tarot card, she imagined. The card itself looked to be getting cut by a pair of scissors. "What does it mean?" Chloe couldn't help but ask aloud. "And why would you get a mark like that for squashing a spider?"

Before Jinxi even thought about an answer, she saw her brother half slip through the crowd. He was smiling, although by the way he was shaking his head, she imagined Jacen could scarcely believe what he was seeing. "She used her tarot cards to find out why Alexa kept having the nightmares... she used it to bring an end to her fears," he answered. "I imagine the scissors and the card represent solving misfortune." As he casually joined his sister and his friend, he let out a laugh. "I don't buy that the cards actually have any power, Jinxi... but clearly you do."

Author's Note

This was actually started in November, but I hit a bit of a rut towards the end of Jinxi's nightmare. In December, the exchange with the government official was written but still I knew the chapter wasn't finished. After all, I wanted to show one of the siblings getting their marks.

Day 2 - Reassignment

The two siblings sat atop the desk in the borrowed office. Jacen, wide awake for the time of day, was propping up his twin with his body, somewhat unamused by the fact that he was being treated as an oversized pillow. Deep down, he knew it wasn't her fault for being so tired, what with the seemingly hard-programmed operating hours instilled by the virus and life in the hospital often waking her during that downtime. On top of that, there was something of a need for closeness being a pony brought the two. Still, he could have done without her starting to drool on him whenever she started dozing off.

Although he'd tried to convince her to rest so that she might be more lucid during today's scheduled meeting, Jinxi hadn't gotten any rest throughout the night. Much of the previous evening had become an impromptu celebration for the young mare finding her special talent. Even though the food was tight, one of the nurses broke out a bunch of snacks and non-alcoholic beverages. There were even a few boardgames and decks of cards to come out.

The celebration only grew in scope during when a doubles poker game began on the floor of the day room. Nopony was actively keeping score, but really, there wasn't any need to; Jacen had partnered up with Chloe, and was winning five games for every three Jinxi and Kate won. The siblings guided their inexperienced partners, rather than taking the lead, and the final hand was strictly between Chloe and Kate. When the former confidently won the game thanks to his guidance, he found all eyes in the day room on him, or more specifically, his flank.

He'd spent the rest of that evening in silent contemplation of the comet-like cluster of card suits—Or was it a four-leaf clover with suits for leaves?—and what it meant. It'd shown itself not from direct play, but rather from the guidance he provided Chloe bearing fruit. The mark itself didn't tell him much, but from what little understanding he held, the symbolism was up to interpretation and the bearer to decide. Rather than his choices directly leading to his mark, it'd come from his luck and guidance of another.

Is that to be my role as a pony? Leading and advising others? It'd been on his mind since he saw his mark that morning. He'd already sided with Chloe in regards to the relocation and resettlement of the Atlantic ponies, but if he really intended to take an advisory role, that'd seal that he'd probably never leave Canada again. The ponies here might need him, and as much as he agreed with Jinxi that Pete and Gage could very well be in trouble, there wasn't a whole lot he could do. That brought him back to the now.

On the side of the desk opposite of them, Grace Rowlins shuffled some papers. To her right sat a notary, a disinterested looking man in is fifties. The exact purpose of the meeting had not been revealed to the twins as of yet, and neither one had any real clue as to why someone from the Premier's office wanted to speak with them directly. The sleepy night pony seemed pretty certain that they weren't being singled out for infecting the region, but the rational part of Jacen's mind wouldn't dismiss the possibility.

After several minutes, of extended silence, Grace looked up from the papers and ran a pale hand through her ginger locks. "Right, so here's the rub, you two," she commented, startling the night pony into full alertness. "Although there have been cases of pregnant ETS victims elsewhere giving birth to foals not long after their transformations, so far as we can tell, you are a relatively unique case. As far as the government is concerned, you—" She pointed directly at the dark-coated pony, who narrowed her pink eyes at the gesture. "—didn't exist before ETS, which leaves us with a problem. You have no citizenship, or any form of identification."

That got a nod from Jacen. "Makes sense," he said in his flat voice as he gave his sister the side-eye. "Even if she's mentally my duplicate, I'm pretty sure she was born from the cells of a sibling who died in the womb. There wouldn't even be any documentation of a Jaina Cadlow back in the states."

Although the politician raised an eyebrow at the comment, she didn't address it. "This means that you have some options that the provincial and federal governments are willing to consider, Ms. Cadlow." Folding her hands atop the desk, she met the glaring pony's unflinching gaze. "The first is that you are given a retroactively dated birth certificate and have a Social Insurance Number made available to you. This would make you a Canadian citizen first and foremost, but you would be unlikely to get a passport for some time."

Jinxi rose to her hooves, and spread her wings. "That's not happening," she hissed as she gave a stomp on the desk. "Like I said yesterday, the two stallions who're the next closest thing I have to brothers are in Denver, and things have been going to pot there. I need to be able to check in on them!"

A smile graced the ginger politician's face as she quietly moved several papers from her stack to one side. "That's about what I expected," she agreed quietly. "Your other option, then, is having your American Social Security Number updated with your information to reflect what ETS has done to you, and have your ID updated as well. Meanwhile, Mr. Cadlow would retain your Canadian SIN. This would end your dual citizenship, but would allow you to return to the US. You will eventually be deported, but until the border starts allowing non-commercial traffic through, you are still likely to be stuck here."

Quietly, Jacen watched his other half. The frustration she felt at this whole mess was plain on her face. Neither option would be particularly good for either of them. It was either she'd be separated from him, or kept separate from Gage and Pete. Either case would likely result in her being unable to move freely, and it would conflict hard with her need to 'protect' those that mattered to her. The psychology of humans-turned-ponies was a relative mystery right now, but denying that programming sounded like something that would cause mental health problems down the line.

"There's a third option," the earth pony offered, turning his gaze back to the first stack of displaced papers. "Strictly speaking, I am most likely to be considered the 'original' by virtue of being male and retaining my name. Doctor Downey has even informed me that Jinxi has referred to me as such in conversations with staff she's had." Although it was not his intention, he knew that this line of discussion was needling at a sore spot for her, and he had no doubt that it was damaging her self image to think of herself is naught but a defective copy. "That said, what is to stop us from assigning the new identity to me?

"Ideally, I'd like to retain some of our assets in order to help establish a safe community for the Atlantic ponies." Standing up to display his cutie mark to Grace, he sighed. "I don't know how else to explain it, but now more than ever, I feel my place is here. It's like it's what this mark is telling me. These ponies are going to need guidance, and somepony with a rational mind to prop them up."

Without understanding why, he sidled up to Jinxi and threw a foreleg over her withers. Whether she knew it or not, this wasn't where she needed to be. She had a whole life ahead of her, but he didn't want her to shackle herself to him out of duty. He couldn't see any future where she stuck by his side where things didn't slowly become toxic; she needed a push to live, not just as Jacen but as Jinxi. "The boys don't need me right now, Jinxi. They need somepony who'll kick their flanks to keep them in line, and to keep them safe."

His sister jerked away from him, and when he saw the expression on her face, his heart broke. She was regarding him as if she'd been slapped, tears in her eyes. It occurred to him only as she quietly hopped off the table and exited the room that it could be inferred that he was saying he didn't need her. By his reckoning, she should have known that intellectually too, but he had to keep in mind that the split had altered the way they interacted with their emotional states. She's so much more vulnerable, and here I am being a blunt instrument.

With a sigh, he turned back to Grace with a serious expression. "Let's get this over with. What do we need to do?"

As the commandeered school bus carried Jacen and several other ponies toward their new home, he couldn't help but reflect on what he'd done. Intentionally or not, he'd ended up hurting Jinxi in a way he had failed to predict. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty, but in that moment it seemed like the right thing to say to convince her that she should take primary ownership over their identity and assets. Instead, she ended up going to the crystal pony, Kate, and he in turn got a punch in the jaw when he returned to the ward.

"Do you think I did the right thing?" he asked Chloe, who shared the seat beside him with her daughter. "To be honest, I don't know the first thing about being a real sibling, and I clearly suck at it. It's one thing to have people who may as well be brothers, but it's another entirely to suddenly have a real sister who is for all intents and purposes a gender-flipped version of yourself. I want what's best for her but..."

Much to his surprise, the mare draped a cerulean wing over his withers. It was soft, very warm, and far more comforting than it had any right to be. "Give her some time," the pegasus answered in a kind voice. "Whether she agrees or not, I think she was leaning too much on you for support. A little hurt now spares her a bigger one down the line." She rested her chin atop his head before nipping his ear. "She's a big girl, and besides...Ponies always forgive."

Even as his brain misfired, he nodded. "Ponies forgive," he murmured in agreement. "Hopefully sooner than later."

Of all the things to come of ETS, a mare taking a liking to him wasn't one of the things he'd expected—especially not a married mare. Jacen couldn't deny that he held a certain attraction to her from the moment he first saw her. Not only was she really pretty, but she was really easy to talk to. She was really kind, and she seemed to enjoy his company if all the times she sought him out were any indicator. Plus, her foal was cute as a button.

He couldn't exactly blame her for her behaviour, either. Most of their interactions since the vision had been initiated by her, like she'd been seeking something. From everything Chloe told him of her ex, the man was incredibly toxic, possessive, and bordering violent. Up until the start of ETS, she'd taken Alexa to stay with her parents in Colorado while she got things set up to divorce the man.

It was clear that she needed someone calm in her life, but it was still kinda odd to him that she'd gravitate toward him. From what he could tell, his new body couldn't have been more than a teenager by pony standards. It didn't matter if he was an adult if, from the outside looking in, she was flirting and being affectionate with someone that looked significantly younger; he had no pony metric to go by, and by human metrics, a relationship between the two could have been anywhere from acceptable to problematic.

"I'm gonna have to find some happy middle ground when she's ready to talk," he finally said aloud. "I know that getting her own bed will help for what time she remains with us." Turning his head, he glanced to the seat on the other side of the aisle a row back, where Jinxi slept, with the crystal pony nurse acting as a buffer between the two. "Making friends will help her."

A chuckle from Chloe drew his attention back to the mare. "What do you think is going on between those two?" she asked in a teasing lilt. "She was always kinda cold, with us, but when you made your sister cry, she socked ya really good."

Shaking his head, he leaned into the wing hug. "Dunno. Kate seems to be one of the only ponies she talks to regularly and vice-versa," Jacen answered, peering around Chloe to the snoozing foal and chuckling. "They're both outsiders—the only ones of their type in the ward. Maybe they bonded over that?"

Knowing that he felt attraction to Chloe, among other thoughts, he couldn't help but wonder if his sister retained whatever made them ace when they were one person, or if she had her own feelings in that regard too. The ETS and the split did so many things to their brains, and he actually had questions he wouldn't have minded looking up the answers to. Did ETS 'fix' him to encourage reproduction? Or did it merely make him open to the idea of a relationship? Did any other former humans experience peculiar mental changes? A shame the phone was currently in the sleeping night pony's bag.

Time passed, and eventually the group arrived at a small community centre in the city outskirts. The building itself appeared to have been a former church. It still held a steeple and bell, but it had clearly been added onto over the years after being sold off, and more recently, a high chain-link fence had been erected around the property.

There was about two acres of land, allowing for limited farming, and someone had even taken the time to set out some plots and bags of fertiliser. Even if the earth ponies of the group didn't get a chance to grow any sorts of actual crops, it was still something of a blessing. Open space could be used to practice earth pony and unicorn magic alike. So far the only unicorn to show any progress was Dr. Weintraub, having mastered levitation impossibly quick, and although that sort of thing could be practised indoors, anything else would likely be safer to test outside. Similarly, earth ponies would be better served learning their limits where they had plenty of space to run and play.

Although there were a few trees near the boundary and hastily installed gatehouse, there was still plenty of overhead clearance. Plus, the compound was far enough back from the road that nopony would have to worry about powerlines. Pegasi would have plenty of clear airspace to practice flight and weather stuff. If they were really lucky, one of their cluster would figure it out sooner than later and help clear away the late winter.

When everypony was led off the bus—or carried off in the case of the still-sleeping Jinxi—a man working for the government led them all inside. What might once have been a vestibule was now little more than a small secretarial area manned by an RCMP officer, much like the gate-house outside. Past that, the sanctuary was nothing more than a large open space that was likely more recently used for job fairs, voting, dances, and the like. Where once the aisles were, however, there were now several camping cots, sleeping bags, and futon mattresses laid out, far in excess of what the current group numbered.

The man was pointing out the various rooms branching off from the main hall: a computer lab, a kitchen designed around cooking lessons, a daycare, and even a small library space. Then, up on the chancel that had once been a stage, there was some hay. In short, it was everything that ponies would need in the interim until they finally ironed out land for the settlement.

"Hey b'y," Carruthers called out as Jacen settled his bag next to the cot nearest a futon claimed by Chloe and her filly. A quick glance at the stallion revealed that somepony had draped Jinxi across his back, and he had her bag of belongings hanging from his horn. Did none of the humans offer any help? Or had someone warned them about the teeth? "Where should I put li'l miss lazybones?"

He was about to point to the cot next to his, but he then remembered what he'd been discussing earlier. She needed to be separate from him, but not too far away. The goal was to encourage her individual development, rather than risk a codependent relationship. Keep her close, but not too close...

His decision became much easier when he caught sight of the former nurse stepping out of the restroom not too far away. Tiredly, the mare made her way over to a sleeping bag and dropped into loaf position. She's Jinxi's friend, so... "Put her down on the bag next to Kate," he said with a sigh. "She probably won't want to talk to me yet, anyway."

Carruthers looked kind of disgusted by the mare, but nodded and made his way over to where the crystal mare chose to rest. With something of a terse hello, the unicorn lowered himself down so that he could gently nose the deeply sleeping flyer gently rolled off, onto the plush sleeping bag. Once he had her down, he dropped her bag of belongings beside her and stalked off to a cot nearest the vestibule.

Interesting... I didn't really notice before, because she was originally a nurse, but none of the others have really been socialising with the crystal pony. Although he wanted to go stretch his legs after the long ride, he also wanted to stop and think about next steps. Do they avoid her because there were none of her type in the vision? Regardless of what the White Mare showed us, it's clear that they have a purpose... but what?

Might be something to keep an eye on, he decided, frowning at the idea that ponies might turn on their own. For that matter, what'll happen when they bring in other ponies? We should be worrying about learning the ins and outs of our abilities, and then establish some sort of leadership council. It doesn't hurt to at least ball-park a game plan.

His thoughts were interrupted when Rowlins entered the sanctuary, and clapped loudly. "Alright, ponies; listen up!" she bellowed. Everypony but the sleeping Jinxi looked up to regard the government woman with interest. "The first batch of ponies from out of town are just outside, having just shipped in from Truro. Make them feel welcome, 'cause you'll be seeing a lot of each other."

At some unseen signal, the vestibule door opened, and several more ponies strode in, as well as a young man who was sticking close to a mare while carrying a foal in his arms. There were nearly ten additional earth ponies, seven more pegasi, two more unicorns, and two night ponies, those being the mare and the filly with the young man. That brings us up to twenty-three earth ponies, thirteen pegasi, five unicorns, three night ponies, and Kate.

Even as the new ponies dispersed around the room to pick their spots and meet their new neighbours, Jacen kept his eye on the night pony mare and the young man as they seemed to be considering the the futon near Jinxi and kate. If there was a word to describe either of them, it was punk rock. Between his dyed faux hawk, piercings, and studded leather jacket, and the spiked collar and fresh piercings—ear, eyebrow and a side-labret ring—on the mare, it was hard not to think it. Then he caught sight of the wedding band suspended from her collar, which matched the one on the young man's finger.

At least that guy is standing by his mare and is willing to start from scratch, he thought with a smile as the man carefully laid down on the mattress with the little grey and cerise filly. He must've not budged on being separated from the other two. Gotta admit that hands will be useful for the settlement.

Rather than stick around, Rowlins made her way back to the vestibule door. "Ponies from elsewhere in the province will join us over the coming days," she said with finality. "The New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island groups will join you at the settlement."

Quietly wondering how many more would be joining them, he watched as the punk mare, a lighter grey than his sister, brushed her indigo mane from her face and regarded Jinxi. Vivid red eyes—Or is that just irritation from being awake during the day?—seemed locked on the smaller pony's cutie mark, and she seemed to consider talking to her. When the crystal pony tapped her hoof sharply on the hardwood floor and fixed the newcomer with a warning look, he almost expected to see a fight break out, especially when the two made direct, unflinching eye contact.

Instead, the indigo-maned punk looked her up and down before smirking slightly. "So, you're one of them, huh?" the mare remarked with a bob of her head. "Cool. I'm Evelyn." She stepped forward and offered a hoof, while angling her head back to the human and foal. "That's my hubby Jake, and the little one's my little Dust Bunny, Danielle. You?"

When the crystal pony clopped her hoof against Evelyn's, he let out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding in. "Kate," she said simply before nodding towards the passed out night pony beside them. "That's Jinxi. Let her sleep, though; between ponies keeping her up, a stressful meeting with Rowlins, and her twin Jacen—" She pointed directly at the placidly observing earth pony." —being a prick to her, she's exhausted." Quickly, she added, "No, they're not mine."

The red-eyed night pony didn't seem to care too much about that last remark. Instead, the moment he'd been pointed out, the mare's wings twitched and she fixed him with a death glare. Oh boy... I can already tell she does not like me.

Day XX: Prelude

In the weeks following the deployment of Princess Twilight's counter-spell, things were a blur for number of great number of data analysts—not just on the human side of things, but also the Equestrian as well. Many governments outside the United States had not only requested aid in dealing with their pony populations, but also sent in preliminary numbers of those infected with ETS. These included not only full transformations, but numbers of those who had already been labelled 'Partial'. There were even a few specific cases that had been referenced for one reason or another.

Search Fragment, a unicorn analyst, had been assigned to reading all the information coming in from the country neighbouring the United States to the north. It struck her as odd that the humans could not come together as ponies had and unite their species under one government, but it was a vast world, and governing billions was a tall order. Having read the region's history, she couldn't fault this Canada place from seeking independence from the so-called United Kingdom. At least the fragmented nature of humanity made it easier to break up all the paperwork and assign ponies like her to comb through it.

For the most part, everything that she had read over the last several hours lined up with what had been happening in the United States, albeit at a tenth of the scale. The areas hardest hit seemed to be the cities Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. She was seeing now, however, that there was a fair-sized cluster centred around the city of Halifax in the Nova Scotia province, with tendrils spreading into the other so-called Atlantic provinces. According to an information request from one Dr. Tara Weintraub, a family physician that had been sent towards the CDC through Canada's health authority, one of her patients may very well have been the region's primary case.

The more Fragment read this doctor's reports, the more uneasy she became, however. The patient in question and been within the vicinity of Lazy Pines when the outbreak began, and had even spent time in Denver before returning to Canada. In the following days, however, it became clear that his transformation was atypical of what other humans-turned-ponies experienced. It was actually kind of sickening for her to read... not just because of the sheer suffering caused by the unique interaction between his specific biology and ETS, but because of the psychological trauma that it must have caused.

Although she still had plenty of documentation to go through, Search Fragment gathered up the relevant documents into one file folder. She left her desk at a brisk trot, the folder levitating alongside her. There was no real answer in her mind how anypony could help this hapless individual, but the case was so... strange that it couldn't just be ignored. Surely somepony would have some idea.

With that in mind, she sought out her supervisor. She was unsure of why, but an official agent of S.M.I.L.E. had been assigned to supervise things Earth-side, and the mare in particular had been interested in any unusual cases such as this. Personally, Fragment suspected that the agency was just being paranoid—as usual—about potential changeling infiltration, or the potential of other demi-pony races popping up. Crystal ponies, for example, hadn't been a part of Sunset Shimmer's plan for this world, so what was stopping seaponies or kirin from coming up too?

Since the taupe mare wasn't at her desk at in the modular office they'd been provided, she had to be out on the roof again. "Agent Nine?" Fragment called out, stepping out of the portable building. To her right there were crates stacked in such a way that an agile pony could use it as an oversized set of stairs. "I've got something unusual here that I think needs attention."

After a moment, the earth pony in question peered over the edge of the roof. Her two-tone curls blew in the breeze as she slid her sunglasses down over her eyes. At her neck hung a pair of binoculars that the unicorn reckoned the agent had been watching the U.S. military with... again. "What have you got, Frag?" she asked, even as she hopped down from the roof to the crate stairway. "You usually wait until end-of-day to give me your report."

With a huff, the unicorn chose to ignore the nickname. Nopony had called her that since she left the agency herself. "Got an unusual ETS case north of the border," she replied once her former coworker-turned-boss landed in front of her. "The primary case for the east coast cluster was extremely atypical, and I thought somepony up the chain might need some eyes on the case."

As Agent Nine took the folder and started leafing through, Fragment used the opportunity to levitate a small mirror and comb from her lab-coat pocket. She'd been Earth-side for almost two weeks now, and the bedraggled pony in the mirror looked more than ready for a trip to a spa. Her green mane was definitely starting to fray at the ends, while the bags under her eyes stood out against her own cream coat. She simply did he best she could to tidy up her appearance while she waited for the agent's assessment.

Rather than disgust like Fragment had felt, though, the tightening of the agent's jaw indicated she was more... angry. "It's unfortunate what happened to this human," the mare said with a sigh, "but I'm more concerned about their treatment as a pony. The way they've been punished for simply following the instincts Sunset Shimmer inflicted on them is tantamount to physical and psychological abuse... and that's only what's been lodged in this doctor's reports. Who knows what's happened since? If this had happened in Equestria to natural-born ponies, I could guarantee there would be a public outcry and arrests."

Search Fragment's ears flicked back, and she found herself staring up at the sky. "Is there nothing that can be done?" she wondered aloud, watching as a flock of birds flew far overhead. "I know no formal agreements have been made with their government yet, but leaving a case like this be feels wrong."

With a nod of agreement, Agent Nine slid the folder into her suit jacket. "I'll pass this up the chain and see what can be done," she murmured. "I hope they'll, at the very least, approve some sort of wellness check. I have my doubts with this case, so I'd like some reassurance that the humans didn't fail as badly as I expect." Her hoof moved to caress the binoculars hanging at her neck as she grit her teeth. "I still don't know how the Princesses can tolerate these wildly unpredictable and inconsistent creatures."

Cycle 1, Day 1: Self-Isolation

The physician stared across her desk at the tall young man in disbelief. If Doctor Tara Weintraub hadn't just seen her patient yesterday over this same issue, she'd have put this off as some sort of poorly thought-out prank. She'd known the man for three years now, and that sort of thing wasn't in-character for him. Jacen Cadlow was a brooding young man, and preferred being serious and direct.

When he'd stopped in yesterday, he was complaining that something had felt off since recovering from the flu during his trip south of the border. Given his less than stellar autoimmune system, it wasn't unreasonable to check in. It showed a fair bit of consideration for his well-being. If only that concern had extended to the pack of cigarettes she could see rolled up in his button-up shirt sleeve.

More than that, though, he was complaining about changes to his hair. Normally, he kept his brown hair buzzed short, so that the blonde patchy discoloration at his temple didn't stand out as much. Yesterday, he'd stated that it'd grown out a full inch and a half overnight, with a blue-grey and white tip discoloration split evenly between the two sides of his head, although at the back the colour had clearly started filling in the further down his neck she looked. Now it had grown out to a full three inches—closer to five on his right side where it'd gone almost completely white. Even his eyebrows were affected, and there were very few traces of his original brown to be found.

"You believe me now, right?" Despite the hints of panic in is overall demeanour, he still managed to look kind of smug. Leaning forward, he set his elbows on the edge of her desk and steepled his hands. "I mean, look at the roots. No dye-job could be that thorough. Even if you could do that without waking someone, I live alone, so unless my apartment's previous tenant kept a copy of the key and just broke into prank me, I don't see how it could happen."

She nodded, making some notes on his chart. "I'm assuming you haven't been in contact with any sort of chemicals, either," Dr. Weintraub offered, even as her free hand moved over to the keyboard. It didn't take her long to pull up the social-media feed she'd seen earlier that day. "You said yesterday that you were staying in Denver with a friend when you were sick with the flu, and that you flew back on Tuesday, right?" Pictures of brightly-haired people, up to and including an image of a young woman sporting a curly-orange tail. "Have you ever heard of Lazy Pines?"

Jacen seemed to consider this for a moment before leaning back in the chair. Cupping his hand over his mouth, a movement that quickly transitioned to him rubbing his bare draw, he groaned. "The guy I sat beside on the bus to Denver International was talking about the town," he responded, bouncing his knee. His eyes flicked from her, to the hand operating the computer, to the back of her monitor. "The whole region was hit hard by the flu, but he said that town was hit the worst. Hell, I stopped over in Breckenridge before I got to my friend's place in Denver. Why?"

With a simple tap of her hand, the flat-screen monitor swivelled. "I normally wouldn't have spared the topic a glance, but for our meeting yesterday," the doctor admitted, her eyes watching as he took in the pictures on the screen. "They all have been saying the same sorts of things. The first set of changes began with their hair, not long after recovering from the flu—took three days overall for a complete change in colour and texture." She turned her monitor back around. "Two days after their hair changed, their eyes had become different colours and they complained of a tailbone ache. The next day they had the beginnings of a tail."

Although he was already a fair-skinned man, his skin was nearly translucent from how pale he'd gone. If not for his still-bouncing leg, he could've been mistaken for a statue. "What are you saying?" he asked after letting out a long breath. He was tense. "That there's some weird epidemic like something out of a goddamn sci-fi horror back there, and I'm a plague rat?"

She shook her head. "I'm not saying that, but..." Taking her glasses off, she pinched the bridge of her nose. "I was on the phone with the Public Health Agency this morning, and although they haven't put anything official out, they've been keeping an eye on the situation in the States. If this is the same thing, it might be best to take some samples and get them examined as soon as possible."

If it had been any other patient, Tara would've expected him to baulk. He, however, was easily one of her most unique patients. His medical records were a testament to that. Not every doctor could boast that one of their patients was a chimaera. She didn't know the specifics of his birth, but she could certainly guess. When she'd had a lab run to verify his medical records, not only did his blood tests return A+ and O- on the typing, but they also returned two different yet similar sets of DNA of two separate sexes.

Between the regular smoking and his motorcycle, it was clear to her that his risk-taking behaviour was the result of some deep-seated issues. He was, if nothing else, a gambler, and even now, she could see the wheels in his head turning. 'Was he running numbers? Considering outcomes?' she wondered, watching the expression on his face. It almost seemed like he wasn't just considering the now, but also later.

"Hair, saliva, or blood?" he asked after a moment's consideration. Some of the pallor faded away, and his mismatched eyes seemed to glint in the exam room's fluorescent lighting. "Ah hell, take'em all."

As she carefully clipped off some of his hair—from the longer side at his request—into a specimen bag and administered a buccal swab, Tara considered the possibilities. Assuming this was unrelated to what was happening in the Front Range, that left the potential causes for this abnormal growth at some sort of hormonal imbalance, chemical exposure, or a glandular cancer. If this was related to the cases down south, she was likely going to have the provincial and federal government insisting Jacen be put into isolation. It was even more likely they'd want to keep him under close observation in a medical facility as the primary case in the event of a similar spate of mutations in the region.

He watched her with wary eyes as she fetched an intravenous cannula and a few vials from a cabinet behind her desk. Seemingly acting on instinct, he reached into his shirt pocket and fished out an old 1900 Morgan dollar. It wasn't the first time she'd seen him fidget with it in his free hand, and she recalled him mentioning that it was something of a good luck charm. The only time he'd ever gone anywhere without it on his person, so he said, he'd gotten into an accident, totalled his old bike, and the hospital had very nearly killed him when they misread his medical record, administering B+ blood. Although the settlement payout had been substantial, he'd since become uneasy when it came to needles.

After flipping the coin and examining the result, he glanced at her. "Anything I should do while we wait for results from the lab?" Jacen asked as she slid the cannula into the vein in the crook of his arm. "Should I stock up on food and prepare to wait this out at home?"

It was a moment before she responded, her focus strictly on filling the vial with his blood. "We can't know for sure that this is the same as what's going on in Lazy Pines unless the symptoms progress in the same fashion," Dr. Weintraub admitted as she set the swab, the vial, and the hair sample in a larger bag. "I'd recommend minimising contact with others until we know more, but if your eyes start to bother you—or worse, change colour—I want you to contact my office as soon as possible."

The Friday afternoon traffic was bad. For Halifax, that wasn't anything unusual, but Jacen couldn't help but wish that it wasn't as busy today. It was bad enough that those driving cars didn't always respect that he had every right to be there too, but the thought of another wreck while he had this freaky hair thing on his mind didn't sit right with him. At least he didn't have anything pressing that needed doing on the other side of the harbour; the MacDonald and the MacKay bridges were no doubt full of impatient idiots today.

With that and the snow in mind, he didn't chance speeding or weaving through traffic when he thought he could get away with it. It probably annoyed the asshole in the truck behind him, who'd been tailgating him for the last six intersections, to no end. Luckily, the apartment complex had its own underground parking, so it wasn't like the clown could follow him in to start anything. Road ragers were the worst.

Once he was parked in his assigned spot, he considered taking off his helmet. "She said you should minimise contact with others, Jace," a familiar voice whispered in the back of his mind. It didn't have an actual sound, but much like his own internal monologue, it didn't really need one. "Keep it on until you're home."

He grit his teeth hearing the voice. Oh how he hated when it chose to speak up, usually at the worst times. Worse, he hated that it was right. Watch yourself, and if she starts making any more 'suggestions' that make sense, call Doctor Sato, he reminded himself as he strolled over to the elevator door. Rather than taking his helmet off, he kept it on and kept his visor down.

Luckily, he didn't cross paths with any of the other building's residents. If anything, it seemed like the building was eerily empty. At most, he thought he heard his neighbour yelling at someone on the phone as he passed by her door, The yelling, he noticed, was punctuated by a cough. Wonder if we're due for a spring flu epidemic here, too?

Stepping up to his door, he removed one of his riding gloves and fished his key-ring out of his pocket. Soon after, he was safely in the dark living area of his apartment, his back pressed against the door. As he took off his helmet and sat it on top of the nearby shoe-rack, he called out, "Jaina, I'm back."

The lights flicked on after a moment's delay, bathing the disturbingly clean apartment in a soothing light. From a small device on the attached kitchenette's counter came a soft synthetic voice. "Welcome home, Jacen."

"Anything happen while I was gone?" he asked a he removed his jacket and boots, putting them away. Although he was mostly concerned with his stock portfolio, his repurposed Amazon Alexa also had access to his email inbox, all smart devices in the apartment, a rudimentary machine-learning model, a social media crawling script, and the server his security cameras recorded to.

There was a moment's pause as the virtual assistant did its job. "Google stock is up, while Twitter continues to decline," Jaina announced in what he imagined was supposed to be an apologetic tone. God damn rich people fuckin' over my stocks. "Today at two forty-five P.M., Camera A activated, and recorded for five minutes. No new emails have come in. Would you like a digest of your watched social media topics?"

He stepped over to his couch. "No, pull up the two forty-five recording from Camera A on the TV," he replied, flopping down haphazardly. Running his hand through his hair, he watched as the TV screen turned on, and a moment later, the video file was streaming from the desktop-turned-media server in the corner. Is it my imagination, or has that spot she clipped already grown back? And was that side always this soft?

On the screen, a balding obese man in his fifties was shown entering the apartment. He looked around for a moment, scratching his backside beneath his sweatpants, and then waddled over to the fridge. With that same hand, the man opened the fridge, and rummaged around before grabbing a can of Molson Canadian and the carton of leftover Chinese food from last night. Jacen paid extra attention to every single thing in the apartment the man touched on his way out, mentally noting everything he needed to sterilise or throw out.

"Ugh, that mother fucker," he muttered in disgust. He got up from the couch, made his way over to the sink, and retrieved a package of disinfectant wipes. As he fervently started wiping down everything outside of the fridge, he said "Jaina, remind me in three hours hour that I have to write another email to the building owner about the super trespassing and stealing. Don't let me to forget to CC the tenancy board this time."

After a pause, the virtual assistant spoke. "Got it, Anything else?"

Opening the fridge, Jacen paused. There were several of his discoloured hairs sticking to the handle, and he mentally noted he'd have to vacuum. "Flag any new social media posts regarding Lazy Pines, Colorado, as well as those from the last few days." This time, the AI didn't respond, leaving him in silence to wipe down every container before grabbing the head of lettuce the man had touched. Despite the fact that it was wrapped and in the fridge, the irrational part of his mind insisted it was contaminated. Using a disinfectant wipe as a buffer, he picked up the lettuce and put it in the green bin. What a fucking waste.

Following the cleanup, he scrubbed his hands until they were raw. He had to or else they wouldn't feel clean. If that asshole thought he could just wander into someone else's home just because he was superintendent, and help himself to their food, he had another thing coming. Already, he had some idea of how else he could make it hurt for the guy, his mind wandering towards the Nextdoor app on his phone. Wonder how many other people he's done this to?

"Before that, though, I ought to put in a delivery order with InstaCart," Jacen muttered to himself as he opened the fridge back up. "Let's see... More milk, eggs, cheese, and bread, obviously. Gonna need more produce and canned goods too. Oh, and rice!"

FinalHorcrux: You around, Pete?

LMAO Of course I am, Darth Caedus. :X-WingSlayer98

When am I not? :X-WingSlayer98

FinalHorcrux: First, fuck off with that; I loved my parents, but I still can't stand science fiction because of the fact that they named me after a Star Wars character.

Jacen's gaze flicked over to the hub that housed his digital assistant. The irony wasn't lost on him that he used the name of that character's twin sister for his digital assistant. It was actually intentional, given that it's what his parents had intended to name his twin. It'd been a stupid idea that he'd resorted to when the survivor's guilt flared up after his accident.

FinalHorcrux: Second, fair. You work from home and rarely go out anymore unless it's to hook up.

So what's up? Haven't heard from you since you left Vegas. :X-WingSlayer98

FinalHorcrux: Caught the flu while passing through the Front Range on my way to Gage's place.
FinalHorcrux: I was practically dead on his couch for almost a week. Glad I didn't have to go to the hospital.

Peter had been his best friend back when lived in America in his youth. He, Peter, and Gage had grown up in Colorado together, and he had several fond memories of the time spent with them. Many of them involved nearly getting expelled from high school for various gambling-related schemes. Peter had been very helpful in Jacen's attempt to get kicked out of every casino in Vegas.

The phrase X-WingSlayer98 is typing... popped up at the bottom of the chat window several times. Pete had rarely ever been at a loss for words, so seeing him take this long to formulate a reply worried him a bit. He had a good idea what he might say, but... After the fifth time the message appeared, it stayed up until a response finally came through.

Dude, it's been all over social media that something fucked up is happening there! People are growing goddamn tails, and their eyes and hair are all screwed up! Some can't even eat meat now! Lucky you got out of Dodge just in time, my guy. Even Gage down with the sickness. :X-WingSlayer98

Jacen couldn't help but wince at that assertion. It'd been anything but just in time if the colour of his hair was to be believed. Turning off his phone screen and angling it to see his reflection only revealed that it'd grown longer in the six hours since he'd gotten back from Dr. Weintraub's office. It almost seemed like it'd took a huge leap while he napped after dinner. The right side was now fully white and extended all the way down to his shoulder, and he had to tuck it behind his ear to keep it out of his face. Meanwhile, the left had become a scruffy grey mop that almost hung over his left eye.

I look ridiculous, he thought, opening the phone to its camera app. Jacen considered whether he should take the picture and send it to his friend or not. On the one side, Pete was like a brother to him, but at the same time, he felt as though his friend might post it online if thought it'd get traction. If it ends up online, and the doctor confirms the worst, the government's probably gonna send the RCMP to personally take me into quarantine.

With a sigh, he switched back over to the messenger app. After sending the image, he felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him. Usually, being up past eleven meant nothing to him, but between the persistent sense of wrongness since his hair started changing Wednesday night, and anxiety dragging her back to the surface, he could hardly keep his eyes open. It didn't help that he was starting to get a bit of a migraine.

FinalHorcrux: Ain't nothin' lucky about this, Pete. This shit's freaking me out, and I'm kinda scared. My doc's probably trying to get in contact with the Colorado Department of Health, and I've pretty much decided to keep my head down in case whatever the fuck this is could be contagious. Fuck only knows what my tail's gonna look like.

Dude... :X-WingSlayer98

FinalHorcrux: Listen, I'm gonna go have a smoke and catch some Zs. I'll catch up with you some other time.

Without waiting for a response, he set the instant messenger app to silent and slid the phone into his pocket. From his sleeve, he removed the pack of cigarettes and tapped one out. He nearly lit it before remembering the lease didn't want him smoking inside the apartment. Instead, he tossed the pack onto the coffee table and made his way over to the kitchen, and snagged a beer from the fridge.

As he sat on his patio chair in the cool not-quite-spring night. He was thankful he hadn't gotten any accumulation on his patio, leaving him a dry spot to smoke in peace. Cracking open the can, he took a sip before setting it aside and lighting up. Glad it's a clear night... A shame there's too much light pollution to really enjoy the stars.

"Look at you, poisoning your body, even with whatever's happening to you," came the voice of his doubts. It was so much clearer than it had been in the garage, and a tingle in the prickle on the back of his neck almost made it feel like she were right behind him. "Such a waste..."

Taking a long drag from his cigarette, he stared up at the underside of his upstairs neighbour's patio. "You're not real, so you can just piss off," he muttered as he exhaled the smoke. When Jacen sat up and traded the cigarette for the cold Molson, he caught sight of his reflection in the patio door. A bitter-looking young woman with long brown hair glared back at him. When he blinked, she was gone. "You're not her and you never were..."

No response was forthcoming, so he went back to trying to decompress. Stress, that's the only reason she's even back, he thought, tossing the empty beer into a bucket he kept by the door. Once this is all over, she'll go away. She always does. With the cigarette now hanging from the corner of his mouth, he stood up and leaned against the patio's railing to look out over the city.

"It should've been her," the voice of his former 'friend' hissed in his ear as he ground the butt out on the railing. "Delude yourself all you like, killer, but it should've been her that lived."

Author's Note

Friday of the first week of the ETS Pandemic. First hints of the transformation began Wednesday evening.