That Time Everypony Swapped Bodies

by ThistleZoey

Rating: teen
Tags: Violence, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Main 6, Romance, Trixie, Comedy, Adventure, Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Profanity
Length: 47799

A curse from a mysterious mirror entity starts swapping everypony's body! Trixie and Twilight the first to be swapped with thousands of ponies across equestria finding themselves in the wrong set of horseshoes.

Trixie accidentally makes a deal with some strange mirror entity that lives in reflections. Out of nowhere, ponies all across Equestria are suddenly swapping bodies.

This causes immediate problems with our favorite horses, with patient zero of the calamity being Twilight Sparkle swapping bodies with Trixie Lulamoon.

The mane 6 (and the new bodies they end up in) must travel to the four corners of Equestria to find a way to fix this mess!

Published 2024-05-03 23:30:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-06-15 23:16:30 UTC

That time everypony swapped bodies

🪄Chapter 1🪄

That time everypony swapped bodies

(This story is set sometime during season 5!)

Trixie sat in her caravan, very much looking like a cat who was born in a wet cardboard box all alone.

It had been several months since her second encounter with Twilight in ponyville. She had fled after being humiliated and it was safe to say she didn’t plan to return any time soon. She had seen in all the papers about Twilight’s coronation and ascension to a Princess. Trixie, of course, didn’t particularly care that Twilight was the princess of friendship. She thought she was still just a stupid horse with a STUPID mane and a STUPID temperament about being FRIENDS with ANYONE and she was STUPID and PRETTY and STUPID. Grr. How she despised her so.

The rain was pouring outside and the magician had been caught in the huge thunderstorm that was sweeping over central Equestria. Her hat and cloak were ruined, and lying in the corner in a messy heap. As she tried her best to use her simple spell to dry her hair (it wasn’t really working), she let out a groan.

“I don’t understand it, Trixie!” she said, looking over at her mirror. “Didn’t the world get the memo that Trixie was going out today? Did nopony care that Trixie might get a little soggy?”

“I know! Honestly, the AUDACITY of these pegasi!” the mirror Trixie replied back. The mirror Trixie was, of course, just Trixie pretending to be somepony else (that somepony else also being Trixie.)

“Do they KNOW how difficult it is to be ME? The Great and Powerful Trixie may be both great and powerful… but it can be a lonely life…” she lamented, looking at the mirror.

As much as she hated to admit it… in this current moment, she looked like a wreck. It hadn’t been only living on the road. She had barely been able to do any performances at all thanks to her failed takeover of ponyville being in all the papers. She had scored a few lucky hits with younger pony’s birthday parties, with little fillies seemingly the only ponies that didn’t hate her. The worst thing was… she had brought it all onto herself. She let out a huff of frustration. She still didn’t feel like she deserved all of… this.

““If only there were a way for them to really see what it’s like to be Trixie …” she moaned to her mirror.

“But there is a way!”

“Really? What-” Trixie was intrigued, before realising that her response hadn’t actually been from her. It had been from the mirror. Without her talking. She moved her head left and right. The mirror version didn't move, and instead was just simply smirking.

“Greetings, Trixie!” Mirror Trix said. “You’re probably wondering… how did I get-”

SMASH

Trixie had just thrown a bottle of cider at the mirror. Surprisingly, it was only the bottle that smashed, and not the mirror. Mirror Trix giggled. “Aw! How sweet! Its been Aeons since i’ve tasted cider”

“WHO are YOU to impersonate ME! There is only ONE Trixie Lulamoon, and it is MOI!” Trixie growled, and stomped up to the mirror. Upon arriving, she looked ‘herself’ up and down. The creature imitating her appearance was in a much better state than her. A freshly cut and combed mane, flawless eyeshadow, a well rested face…

“Although… I must say, mysterious mirror entity that is copying my appearance… you do look rather alluring…” she admitted. Wow.

“I do, don’t I? Anyway! I was just passing by your mirror when I heard you groaning and moaning, so I decided to see if I could help!”

“What do you mean, passing by my mirror? The only thing on the other side of this mirror is my draw of unused cloaks and mouldy props” Trixie tilted her head, eyes narrowing. Maybe this WAS some sort of trick. “Are you some sort of demon?”

“Okay!” Mirror Trixie stamped down her hoof. “New rule! Any more questions, and I don’t grant your wish!”

“But weren’t you just going to explain how you-”

“Trixie! You are testing my patience~”

Trixie shut herself up, but still seemed suspicious.

“Since I am feeling… shall we say, mischievous today… I’m going to put a little curse on all the mirrors in Equestria! Your wish will be granted, Trixie! Everypony will learn what life is like in somepony else’s hooves”.

“... What does that mean?” She asked her reflection.

Mirror trixie just winked, some sparkles flying out of her closed eye and making the mirror shimmer for a few moments… before Trixie was left looking at her normal reflection once more.

She stared at herself for a few more moments… then shrugged.

“Probably just some sort of hallucination.” said Trixie, and went over to put her cloak away. Her fur did prickle a bit as she turned back around, and got a passing glance at the mirror. She felt a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach as she looked into it.

Trixie blinked.

In an instant, she had the sensation of being blasted by a ferocious gust of wind and having all air removed from her lungs. Then, in the same instant, she was suddenly slammed into the floor before springing back up into a standing position. It was the most disorienting moment of her life.

As the blink ended and she opened her eyes again, she fell to the ground with a cry of panic. What was this? Was that mirror demon real? Where was she even!?

The room that she had appeared in was huge, with tall blue crystalline walls with huge crystal support beams. The floor was cold and upon closer inspection was made of rocks too.

The sudden shift from her quaint wooden caravan into this palace looking place was quite the shock to the system.

It took a few moments for Trixie to steady herself, but she managed to get to her hooves. She felt… weird. Taller.

Warning bells really started to go off when she saw the dark purple bangs flop down over her eyes.

“What?” she exclaimed out loud, flicking the strange manecut out of her face, only to get yet another jumpscare. That wasn’t her voice!?

She looked at her hooves. Her purple hooves…

“T-These aren’t my hooves!?”

She felt the wings on her back.

The panic started to rise, she quickly ran over to the mirror and shot the hardest look she had ever looked in her life at it.

Twilight Sparkle stared back.

She was Twilight Sparkle.

Before she even had time to process any of this, the door swung open and RainbowDash entered.

“Twiiilight… how long are you going to be? We were meant to leave four minutes ago! Four whole minutes! Fluts is getting a bit twitchy!” She said, glancing back at the hallway.

Trixie could gently hear fluttershy talking to a rabbit down the corridor.

She was Twilight! They had switched places! How! And now she had to deal with her annoying friends!?

“Twi? Helloooo? Anypony home?” said RainbowDash, tapping her hoof impatiently. Trixie snapped back to it.

Quick! Think quickly Trixie! What would Twilight say in this situation!

“... Have you tried using friendship?” Trixie replied slowly. Rainbow looked back at her with unamused confusion.

“What?”

“You know. Friendship. You know me! The Great and Powerful-” she stopped herself just before she gave the game away. RainbowDash just looked confused.

“T-Twilight sparkle! I love friendship! It’s magic!”

RainbowDash stared at her, and then her eyes moved over to the huge pile of books by her bed, most of them still open.

“... You haven’t slept, have you”

AHA! Trixie had a golden ticket! There was no possible way she could-

“No, I slept quite well.”

Trixie realised how stupid that response had been. She visibly tensed, her wings accidentally fwoofing out.

RainbowDash’s head tilted like a dog who had just been told it was adopted (as most dogs are).

“Are you… feeling alright?”

Trixie’s bottom lip wobbled. She was NOT feeling alright.

And that was the first time that she could remember anyone actually asking her that. She looked back at the mirror at the unfamiliar appearance in front of her.

“N-No…” she said, with a slight whimper.

“Do you… want to talk about it?”
Trixie was frozen once more.

Did she want to talk about it?

If they found out who she REALLY was… that would make everything a lot more complicated.

She looked back at RainbowDash, who was showing… concern? Real concern??

For her.

Trixie.

Somepony was acting caring towards Trixie.

If Trixie told her, she would just be met with the usual dismissal and or aggression she was used to. So it wouldn’t hurt to lie for just a little bit as she got her bearings, right?

Trixie smiled.

“N-No, not really. But thank you for asking! The happy and friendfull Twilight loves you!”

RainbowDash zoomed over and gave her a hug. “Love you too, Twi! Don’t worry about it, we’ll head out to the farm now. See you there later! Or not!”

RainbowDash gave one last squeeze, and flapped out of the room!

Trixie stood there, motionless, staring at the empty doorframe, then back at herself in the mirror. A smirk crossed her face, and she gently bumped up her mane with her hoof.

“Maybe I could get used to this…” she said out loud to her reflection…

It was then that a thought teleported into her brain as she looked into her own new eyes. One that mildly concerned her (but not enough for her to actually act on anything just yet).

If I’m here… then where is Twilight?

“GUUUAUUAUAUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Twilight leapt back like a cat who had just set off a fire alarm. Where was she!?

And whose voice was that? Who was screaming?

AHH!

What was GOING ON!?

One moment, she was getting ready to head over to the farm for a picnic, and was just checking herself in the mirror. Next, she was here. Wherever here was!

She took a moment to regulate her breathing, but it was so obvious something was wrong. Something was really very VERY wrong. She felt so weak. So thirsty. So… itchy!?

She gave her side a quick scratch, before taking in her surroundings. She was in a tiny, shabby caravan, with food wrappers and dirty clothes strewn about everywhere. The place looked a bit like a bomb had hit it. But the small context clues around her (mainly all of the various magic show debris) told her who’s caravan it was.

“Trrrrrixies home?” she said, letting out a squeak. Her voice had automatically done that little trill that Trixie’s did when saying her name. It sounded exactly like her too!

She finally looked at the mirror, and her worst fears had been realised.

Trixie looked back.

She was Trixie.

The panic and fear started to rise up in her throat as she started to hyperventilate. Head whipping too and fro, she tried to find an exit, but was cut off by hearing a cackling laugh.

“Oh dear, Twilight… what an awful state you’ve got yourself in!”

She looked around. Who was that!? It sounded like…

In the mirror, Twilight could see… herself? As in, a horse that looked like the princess of friendship Twilight Sparkle.

It had to be Trixie, surely!

Twilight growled.

“Trixie! What in e-equestria have you done!?” she roared, stamping her hoof down. “Swap us back RIGHT now!”

“I’m not Trixie”

Twilight paused. “You’re… not?”

“No. I’m a creature of reflections. And the one who’s body you inhabit made a little wish upon a star, shall we say~”

“She…” Twilight’s ears flattened back. “She… wanted to be… me?”

“Well, not exactly. She wanted someone to know how tricky it was to be her.” Mirror ‘twilight’ replied, inspecting her hooves nonchalantly as she spoke. “And I thought to myself… why, these strange material beings must often think that! So I used a litttttle bit of magic to curse every reflective surface in Equestria! Now if two ponies look at the mirror and blink at the same time… SNAP! Swapped!”

“You… Y-You can’t do this!” Twilight was already in tears. “I-I don’t want to be Trixie! Put me back!”

“Sorry, kiddo, no can do! You’ll both have to look at a mirror at the same time again! And just hope that nopony else is doing their mane… or having a cry… or just taking in what a sad worthless pathetic little magician they are…”

That last one seemed pointed.

“Well! Must be off! I’m sure we’ll talk again soon, Trixie Sparkle!”

“W-WAIT! YOU CAN’T JUST-”

The shimmering reflection of herself dissipated.

Twilight was left looking at a miserable Trixie, with tears of overwhelming stress slowly dripping down her cheeks as she sank down to the floor, head in hooves.

After a few moments of desperate panicking, she managed to get herself up off the floor to really take in her surroundings. The caravan was… well, it was a complete state. She shuddered; did Trixie really live like this? What had she been doing all of this time? Her eyes were drawn to a partially ripped wall calendar. There were so many plans written in scrawled sharpie. Twilight’s stomach twinged a little as she saw most of them were crossed out with red markers. She levitated the page up (noting that it was a lot more effort to use her magic than usual). For the last few months, it had all been the same; a few tiny bookings here and there… but nothing to really live off.

Despite Trixie deserving it…

Twilight was to blame for this.

She thought back to what the strange mirror entity had said to her. ‘Worthless pathetic little magician they are…’

She looked back into the mirror, at the dishevelled unicorn in front of her. Trixie really hadn’t been taking care of herself, had she?

She sighed. She had more than just this bodyswap to fix, didn’t she?

“Right…” she said to herself. Having a different voice was… disconcerting… but she could deal with that later. “Come on, Twilight. You just need to get back to ponyville and sort this mess out before.”

She took a single step and her hoof landed in a four day old sandwich. She grimaced.

“... Maybe I should clean her caravan first.”

She carefully started to move some things off the floor, anxious in the back of her mind about what the mirror entity had said about ‘every mirror is Equestria…”

“And… you’re sure she’s okay?” Fluttershy asked nervously as RainbowDash told her of the strange interaction she had just had with Twilight.

“Yeah, well, no, but I know if it was REAL bad, she’d just tell us. Probably just having a stress over the font changing in a book she liked or something” she said, rolling her eyes a little. Fluttershy glared at her. “W-Which is something she cares about alot! So its okay for her to be sad!”

Fluttershy’s expression softened, and gave her a little nudge. “Good save.” she said quietly. RainbowDash grinned, blushing a tiny bit as she looked away awkwardly.

The pair of ponies had only been a couple for a few weeks, and were still trying to figure everything out. It had surprisingly been Fluttershy who instigated the relationship, but only after she had accidentally told RainbowDash that she ‘liked how she smelt after she had been exercising’,. It had been an embarrassing couple of minutes, but it was a freudian slip that had led to both of their first kisses. From there, they had been on a couple of cute dates, but as per Fluttershy’s request, they had been taking it very slowly. And for once, RainbowDash didn’t mind not breaking the sound barrier.

“A-Anyway!” RainbowDash got into the air again as per usual. “I’m going to go quickly grab that weird Manehatten cider that AJ was wanting me to get, I’ll be right back!” She said, giving Fluttershy a small kiss on the forehead before zooming off. Fluttershy giggled. How had she managed to pull this one off?

She went back to tending to Angel, who was making a fuss about not wanting to eat a carrot because it was too orange. She was happily humming to herself, but was interrupted by a loud screech coming from RainbowDash’s room in the castle! Fluttershy’s ears shot up. Oh no! Was she ok?

She quickly shot up and ran towards the room, where the now hysterical crying from RainbowDash was emanating from.

“D-Dash!” she stuttered as the mare went into the room to see RainbowDash on the floor, staring and sobbing at the Mirror.

“WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME! FLUTTERSHY! HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I’M HIDEOUS!” RainbowDash wailed in a uncharacteristic dramatic fashion, launching herself and grabbing onto Fluts for dear life. Fluttershy was a little stunlocked by this, before gently patting Rainbowdash on the back of the mane. She wasn’t usually to fussed about her appearance. “Shhh… Its ok! I promise, your hair looks lovely today! I-It, uhm… kind of looks the same as it always does…” She said, looking down into the matted and messy mane. ‘She really does need to wash it more…’ she thought to herself. She gave her a small kiss on the muzzle. “It’s all going to be-”

“F-FLUTTERSHY!?”

RainbowDash suddenly scampered away. Fluttershy’s heart dropped. Was that the wrong thing to do? Was that without consent? Oh no… oh no no no n o no no no … her wings clamped to her side.

“D-Dashie! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean, it's before you… i thought-” she said, her words tumbling out of her mouth before she could properly stitch them together.

RainbowDash’s wings, on the other hand, seemed to be randomly jerking in different directions without much rhyme or reason.

“I-I’m not RAINBOWDASH! Uwuagh! Its me! Rarity!”

Fluttershy blinked at her. RainbowDash loved pranks. But the delivery and wildness seemed a bit much even for her.

But it was also ludicrous.

“Uhm…” she said, not knowing how to take this right now. “No you’re not-”

“I AM! I SWEAR! SOMETHINGS GONE TERRIBLY WRONG! I’M ALL-”

She ran a hoof through her mane and gagged. She looked like she was going to throw up.

“G-Greasy! I can’t be seen outside like this! What if somepony realises it is me! They see Rarity like THIS!? That would be the WORST! POSSIBLE! THING! EVER!”

Okay, that was Rarity.

Fluttershy let out a squeak of discomfort. Rarity was, of course, known for her style and looks. Keeping up good appearances is her main priority.

“U-Uhm, ok! Ok, uhm..” Fluttershy slowly started to approach the sobbing mess. What was she meant to do!? Her girlfriend was suddenly NOT her girlfriend but instead one of her other friends! What sort of magic was going on?

“D-Do you know how this happened?” she asked slowly. Rarity shook her head. “N-No! One moment I was brushing my mane in the mirror to get ready for Applejack’s picnic and then SUDDENLY I look like a horrible disgusting unwashed disgrace of a-” Rarity stopped herself as she found herself the sudden target of Fluttershy’s stare.

“DON’T! Say that about my girlfriend.” she said firmly. Rarity nodded briskly. The stare finished, and Fluts shrank back down to her usual demeanour.

“Sorry, darling… You know I like to keep myself well maintained…”

Hearing RainbowDash say darling in that tone was disconcerting.

“I-Its ok. Uhm. Well. I think the…” she looked at the door. Twilight would know what to do.

“I-I’ll go get Twilight. She’ll know what to do! B-Be right back!” She said, and gave Rarity an awkward pat on the head as she went back to sobbing.

Fluttershy hurried out, taking a moment to breathe as she left the room. If Rarity was here as RainbowDash… that would mean that RainbowDash would be wherever Rarity is?

Oh goodness… she probably wasn’t taking this very well, was she? She could be rather rash sometimes… she just hoped that rarity’s boutique hadn’t been demolished by the time she checked in.

Carefully clipclopping over to Twilights room, she stuck her head through the still open door.

‘Uhm… Twi…’ she mumbled.

Twilight didn’t seem to be paying attention to the door, instead she seemed to be rummaging through her closet?

To Fluttershy, this was strange; Twilight never tended to dress up fancy unless it was a big event. Mabye AJ’s picnic WAS a big event. Oh no mabye she should have thought of a cool dress to bring oh no oh no fluttershy you idiot you messed it all UP-

No. No time for panic.

Fluts was about to enter when Twilight started to mutter to herself.

“Who needs this much clothes? Does she not have even a single cloak? How is she meant to wow her… oh, yes. Right. Wings. Can’t have a cloak and wings! Unless… WING HOLES! HA!” She said, pulling out a simple black cloak from the closet, draping it over herself happily

Fluttershy’s legs started to wobble.

That wasn’t Twilight, was it?

The creature that looked like Twilight was gladly strutting too and fro, looking in the mirror as herself.

A changeling?

No, it couldn’t be. A changeling wouldn’t act like this if it thought it was alone. This HAD to be another pony who had somehow been swapped! But who!?

“Hehe… Ahem… I AM THE GREAT AND POWERFUL ALICORN, TWILIGHT SPARKLE! ALL SHAL BASK IN MY GLORY!”

Okay it was Trixie.

…

It was Trixie.

Fluttershy let out a squeak of shock, which caused Trixie’s head to shoot round. Luckily, Fluttershy managed to zip behind the door before she was seen!

Shoot… Shoot shoot SHOOT!

She needed to get out of here, with Rainbow- No, RARITY in hoof!

She scuttled back into the room.

“R-Rarity, we h-have to go! Trixie is-”

The newly turned pegasus wasn’t here. But she could hear running water-

“A-Are you having a shower!?” she looked over to the ensuite door.

“Yes, I’ll just be a minute, darling! I just need to get all of the dirt and grime out of RainbowDash’s mane! W-Won’t be a moment!”

The shrillness of her voice made it sound like she was on the edge of one huge breakdown, which was fair enough I suppose in this situation.

“B-But, T-Twilight! Sh… S-She’s Trixie.”

The water stopped abruptly. The door swung open and a sopping wet ‘RainbowDash’ stepped out, barely able to see through her damp hair.

“She’s WHO!?”

“W-We need to go! N-Now! We need to g-get to the picnic! E-Everypony else will be there, we, w-we can start making a plan!”

“But I need to check on the Boutique! W-Who knows what RainbowDash may have done! She might have set the whole place on fire!

Fluttershy was about to defend her girlfriend again, but to be honest, she couldn’t guarantee the entire building wasn’t destroyed by now.

“B-Blow dry your mane and then we will run, ok!”

Rarity nodded and went back inside the bathroom.

Fluttershy nervously stood by the door, holding it closed. She could only hope that Trixie didn’t realise what was going on and barge on in. Trixie was bad enough as a regular Unicorn, but as an Alicorn?

Ponyville would surely be in ruin!

Through the streets they dashed, Rarity frequently tripping over. As they went, it was becoming clear that whatever this phenomenon was, it was happening alot. Many confused residents were panicking. Lyra was talking to Bonbon about how she was a colt in Manehattan about to have a job interview, HollyDash was panicking about where her son was, and Derpy Hooves was flying around in a circle above.

Although thinking about it that might be normal.

But through the chaos, Fluttershy could hear a common theme. Mirrors.

Rarity had been swapped after looking at a mirror.

Trixie was in a room with a mirror.

She gulped.

She was going to have to be the one to fix this, wasn’t she?

There was something that made fluttershy uniquely equipped to try and keep everything calm here.

She ran her tongue along her pointed teeth with unease.

Author's Note

Hi! Welcome to my new story!

I love bodyswap stuff, so thought I’d do a weird and wild story about Equestria falling into anarchy due to the mysterious mirror entity!

Click here to follow me on Tumblr! Feel free to message me on there!

Let me know what you thought down in the comments!

See you soon! Next chapter should be out within the week!

PS

I will be writing a little checklist of who is in whose body at the start of each chapter in an attempt to keep everything. Less confusing lmao

That time Applejack and Rainbow Dash committed several felonies

🏦 Chapter 5 🏦

That time AppleJack and Rainbow Dash committed several felonies

CURRENT STATUS

Twilight inhabits Trixie

Trixie inhabits Twilight

Rainbow Dash inhabits Rarity

Rarity inhabits Rainbow Dash

PinkiePie inhabits PinkiePie

Fluttershy shivered. This cellar was freezing cold. She hoped there was some sort of firewood in the room yet unexplored. Entering, she was met with disappointment. It was just a bathroom. It had two sinks, two small stalls, and a mirror. Nothing to be concerned about.

She took a quick look around to see if there were any supplies that could be useful. Seeing nothing, she turned to leave, before something caught her eye. Something that she really hadn’t expected to see.

Her Reflection in the mirror.

She froze in confusion. She hadn’t seen her reflection for months. She had almost forgotten what she looked like. Being careful not to blink, she tilted her head a little, she opened her mouth wide. Yup. Fangs still there. So what gives? Why was it reflecting her?

She had a small theory. She started thinking an old passage in a book she had read about silvered mirrors, but that thought was interrupted by-

CRASH!

The wind had blown the trap door upstairs shut. It was loud. So loud that it caused Fluttershy to flinch.

And when she flinched whilst looking at her reflection…

Fluttershy instinctively closed her eyes.

“Rarity’s going to kill you, ya know.”

AppleJack sat on the mostly abandoned train watching RainbowDash go to town on an entire chocolate cake with an impressive amount of debris surrounding her muzzle, not caring much for being delicate. As she wolfed it down she was grinning, eyes darting up to AppleJack as she went.

“She can’t kill me! If she did she’d be ruining her coat!” She said smugly, messily wiping her muzzle with a hoof.

“You’re already doing a fine job of that as it is.” She said, unamused. RainbowDash just laughed in response.

Rolling her eyes, AppleJack turned her gaze out the window, watching the equestrian countryside by.

Most of the trains were out of service, with the only consistent one left being the Central Equestria to Manehatten express line. The few other ponies in the train car with them were various anxious family members, and one couple who seemed to have swapped with each other who Rainbow Dash knew were divorced. Rainbow Dash didn’t know how she knew this. Maybe it was an instinctive Rarity trait to know when ponies were divorced. There was no way to know.

“Not long now…” mumbled AppleJack. She could see the lights of Manehatten twinkling in the distance. She looked back at RainbowDash sadly, who had somehow gotten a second cake.

Rarity always loved Manehatten. The big apple. She could still remember their big trip there. Their pained efforts to re-establish the community… that’s when she had fully fallen for her. She was perfectly happy with where they were now, sure. But what if there was more? Would that actually make anything better? Or just more complicated. She frowned as she considered it in her mind, pulling her hat down over her eyes. Doing this always helped her think. But was now really the best time to be having these questions?

She decided to change the subject in her mind and look back at Rainbow Dash, who was using her newfound magic to levitate large scoops of chocolate cake into her mouth.

“Hey Dash. Is it just this whole swappin’ business that’s got you so stressed out, or is there somethin’ else?” AppleJack asked, crossing her hooves as she lay down on the seat facing her.

“Ha! Who says I’m stressed?” Rainbow Dash replied with a mouthful of food.

“You eat when you’re stressed.” AJ said boredly, wishing to skip this part of the conversation.

“Nuh uh! Name ONE time.”

“That time at my birthday where you thought Spitfire was coming when you still had a huge crush on her and you ate the entirety of the apple strudel steak bake before finding out she couldn’t actually make it and you threw up all over the back of the barn and Big Mac and I had to spend hours cleaning-“

“OKAY!” Rainbow Dash stopped her, groaning as she put down the plate. It clinked down as she placed it on the already finished. She gave out a little groan as she stared at her unfamiliar hooves. “Fine. You win. I’m trying not to think about Fluttershy.”

Ah.

AppleJack scolded herself. It was so obvious.

“I see…” AppleJack said calmly, looking at her own hooves. “And… do you…” she wasn’t sure how to tackle this one.

“Would you like to talk about it?” She said. She didn’t like putting the pressure back onto her, but it’s all she could think to do right now.

“What is there really to say?” Rainbow Dash replied, looking up at her. “My girlfriends on the other side of Equestria freaking out because her girlfriend isn’t really her girlfriend anymore and I’m freaking out because I’m not really her girlfriend anymore.” She said, immediately putting more of the cake in her mouth.

AppleJack nodded in understanding. “Ah see… I understand how you’re feeling…”

“No you dont.” She said shortly. “You just don’t.” Crossing her hooves, she looked out the window, watching the clouds go by.

“She’s the only thing that gets me up in the morning. The only pony I don’t feel like I have to put on a show for. The only pony that I don't have to prove anything too. She doesn’t care if I’m slow one day or not feeling awesome the next; she’s always just there, helping me keep going, even before when we were dating. And when I AM at my full awesome best, she’s my biggest cheerleader. What more could you ask for?” She looked at AppleJack. “And in return, I get to help the prettiest mare in Equestria come out of her shell and show the world how lucky I am to have somepony as sweet and caring as her looking out for me.” She said, her ears flattened down as she looked out the window forlornly again.

“Somepony I promised I’d never leave.”

AppleJack’s heart dropped as she spoke. She always knew that Rainbow had self esteem issues and they drove her to be the best in a provable way. She didn’t realise how dependent on Fluttershy she had become, almost to the same degree that Fluttershy was dependent on her.

RainbowDash seemed to realise how much she had just given away, so quickly scrambled to put her usual demeanour back on.

“Plus! She’s a good kisser, even if she does smell a bit like the woods!”

AppleJack laughed supportively. “Ain’t that the truth!” She responded in an endearing way. She wasn’t about to spill about how she thought about Rarity; there was no sense muddying the water any more.

“Main thing to remember is, We and the others are going to sort out this whole mess. Plus, we get the easy bit; all we gotta do is withdraw a rock from a bank.”

“Pfft… yeah…” Replied the Temporary unicorn, who was getting annoyed at said horn as it meant she couldn’t lean against the window like she usually did.

“I’ve never even been to a bank before, but it doesn’t seem too difficult. I mean, how hard can it be?”

Rainbow Dash could barely hear herself think as her and AppleJack entered the bank; it was swarming with desperate ponies, all muttering to each other as they queued all the way back to the doors. There had to be at least 600 ponies in the room. The queue seemed to be shifting at a good rate, but nopony seemed to be actually withdrawing anything.

“No way I’m waiting in that! Come on.” Said Rainbow Dash as she put on what could only be described as a smug expression and started marching past the queue. AppleJack’s ears shot up as she quickly ran in front of her and blocked her path.

“what the hell are you doing!?” She hissed quietly, as other ponies in the room started noticing them.

“Don’t worry! I’ve seen Rarity do this hundreds of times!”

“You ain’t Rarity though.”

“Oh, am I not, darling? Hmmm???” She said in an alluring voice, batting her eyelids. AppleJack hated that it kind of sounded like her.

“But we can’t just lie! It’s so dishonest! Please, let’s just-“ she started, before glancing around her. EVERYPONY was staring at them. AppleJack could hear the whispers from the crowd.

“Is that AppleJack and Rarity?”

“The elements of harmony?”

“Surely they’ll know what’s going on!”

“Maybe they’ll get us all of our things! We’re saved!”

Rainbow Dash winked softly. “I think we have the room, my dear.”

AppleJack shuddered a little.

Rainbow Dash proceeded to trot up to the counter, with AppleJack following behind, hat covering her eyes from embarrassment. As Rainbow Dash approached the counter, the pegasus who was getting served backed away, leaving the young and nervous looking colt stranded alone with the full force of Rainbow Dash’s Rarity impression.

“Well hello there, Daaaaarling! I was just wondering if you could be ever so kind and guide me to my vault? There’s something rather important I need to take out?”

“U-Uhm… I…” the colt looked terrified. AppleJack’s eyes narrowed, looking at the name tag.

‘Buck Teller - Trainee’

Poor lad… probably one of the few remaining staff who’s in the right body.

“Oh! And if you do it quickly, I’ll throw in a free hat for you! Perfectly tailored by the best seamstress in Equestria!”

“I-I’m sorry, M-Miss Rarity, but-“ he started, but Rainbow Dash cut her off.

“Aha! So you know who I am! Even better!”

AppleJack rolled her eyes. She would be having words with her later.

“Y-Yes, but uhm… I c-can’t. N-Nopony can take anything out of the vaults.”

“What!?” Rainbow Dash broke character a bit. “I-I-I mean!!! Why ever not? Darling? My Dear? My little sugar plumb fairy? My… why? Not?”

“W-We’ve been told by upper management not to l-let anypony withdraw anything under any circumstance u-until this whole swapping crisis is over.”

Rainbow Dash was at a loss for words. She blinked a few times, before deciding to try another angle.

“Listen here, Bucky.” She said in a low voice. “This is to save Equestria! Do you know who I am!? I’m Rarity Belle! You know? Saved Equestria hundreds of times? I think you can make an exception.”

AppleJack groaned. Rainbow Dash clearly hadn’t spent enough time with Rarity to know that she would never, ever invoke her name to try and get something.

“U-Uhm, we… w-we can’t prove it’s you. Y-You could be pretending.” He said nervously.

“I am NOT pretending! HAHAHAHAH!” She said, laughing nervously. “Come on AppleJack! Tell them it’s me! Rarity!” She said, sticking out her bottom lip at her.

AppleJack was caught between a hoof and a barn. It would be so easy to lie. It might even save Equestria… but Rainbow Dash’s little display had irked her enough that even the threat of annihilation wouldn’t shake her from her morales. She let a big deep sigh.

“Come on, Rainbow Dash. We’re just gonna have to find a gem like that somewhere else.”

Rainbow Dash spluttered about for a moment, before growling. She angrily pushed over a pot of pens at the poor trainee’s desk before storming away, horn sparking a little.

AppleJack looked around at the crowd who were now all staring at her specifically. She tipped her hat nervously before quickly heading out after Rainbow Dash.

They crossed the street to the park, where Rainbow turned to AJ, furious.

“What the HELL was that for!?” She growled, horn sparking some more.

“I told you! I don’t do lying! And if nopony can withdraw anything, then we can’t see ourselves above anypony else!” She snapped back.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Mrs High and Mighty Moral Maze, but I’m in the wrong FUCKING body, and I’d quite like to fix that as soon as I can, so I can get BACK to my AWESOME GIRLFRIEND!” She snarled back at her. Despite being about 2 thirds of AppleJack’s height, seeing Rainbow Dash snarling (as Rarity) was still an intimidating sight, especially since AppleJack knew that if a fight started she would be unable to lay a hoof on Rarity’s body, no matter who inhabited it.

“That’s true and I understand why you’re feelin’ like that, Dash, but you were still treating that poor clerk like dirt!”

“What has HE got to do with any of it!? I had him right on the sole of my hoof and you just-“ she clapped her front hooves together. “SQUASHED it!”

AppleJack could feel her frustration bubbling up. “Oh Please, Rainbow Dash, don’t give me that! Don’t turn this on me! Your dreadful impression would have made Rarity sick! She’d never act like that!”

“OooHhh, and SUDDENLY you’re a Rarity expert! What, you fancy her or something!?” She said, spitting a bit as she got right up in her face, their muzzles inches away from each other .

AppleJack felt like she had just been flashbanged.

“I- Uhm-“ said AppleJack, eyes widening. She stumbled over her words and couldn’t get anything out.

Rainbow Dash continued to snarl before realising what AppleJack’s blush and lack of a real response meant. Her eyes widened too and she backed off, sitting down.

AppleJack did the same, and the pair sat awkwardly for a few moments. Eventually, Rainbow piped up.

“Uhm… S-Sorry, AJ, I didn’t-“ Rainbow started.

“No, no. It’s fine. I know you’re stressed. It’s not your fault.” AppleJack replied awkwardly, avoiding eye contact.

“Doesn’t mean I had an excuse to shout at you like that.” Rainbow Dash said sadly. Her realisation of AppleJacks feelings about the body she was inhabiting reealllyy put a bad taste in the air, especially with how much she had been shouting at her.

“… how in the hay are we meant to get a gemstone like that…” mumbled AppleJack, trying to change the subject.

“You could always rob the bank.” came a monotone voice.

Both mares screamed as they found a filly with scissors for a cutie mark staring up at them with inexpressive eyes, sitting patiently beside them.

It was Babs Seed!

“GUAHH! Babs! What are you doin’ here! How long have you b-been… how much did you hear?“ AppleJack was blushing a little, and held her hat to her fuzzy chest.

“I heard that she is Rainbow Dash and you are in love with Rarity. And I’m not Babs Seed. I’m Maud Pie. I know how to make a bomb.” She replied in the same monotone voice.!

AppleJack and Rainbow Dash looked at eachother, then back at Maud. That had to be one of the most loaded statements of all time.

“Maud? How did you get… here” AppleJack said in slight disbelief.

“I walked.” She replied.

“Ok, yep. Thaaats Maud.” Said Rainbow Dash. “Now, moving back to what you were saying earlier…”

“We can break into the bank and steal the gem you wanted. I heard you talk about it at the bank and then here. I don’t like being this short. Even though I am closer to the rocks on the floor, I am too short to go rock climbing.” She said, holding up her badly grazed leg. AJ and Rainbow both winced.

“Maud, we can’t just break into a bank! That’s wrong! And Illegal!” Complained AppleJack. “There has to be another 7 carat Ruby from the dragonlands SOMEWHERE in Manehatten-“

“there isn’t.” Maud quickly interjected.

“And how do YOU know?” Asked Rainbow Dash.

“I know a lot about rocks.”

Rainbow Dash went to go in with a counter argument, but failed to gather words, and backed down. Maud was right.

She did know a lot about rocks.

“Okay then. Well, let’s do it then! Let’s rob a bank!” Rainbow Dash declared. “How do we get in?”

“RAINBOW DASH! NO!” AJ put her hoof down. “We are NOT robbing a bank! I REFUSE!”

“Oh come on, AppleJack! You’ve always wanted to be a criminal!” Teased Rainbow Dash.

“What!? Since When!?”

“Applejack.” Maud said shortly. AppleJack looked down at her.

“If we don’t, Rarity will be RainbowDash forever.” Said Maud, staring directly at AppleJack as if she was reading her very soul.

AppleJack was once again flashbanged.

“I…” she started, wincing a little, before groaning, putting a head in her hoof.

There was no other way to get one of these gems, right?

And there is no way they’d be getting into this vault through the proper channels… right?

“… Fine.”

“WAHOO! HELL YEAH!” Celebrated Rainbow Dash. “I’ve ALWAYS wanted to rob a bank!”

“yay.”

“BUT!!!” She stopped them. “No Bomb.”

“That's sad.”

“And NO hurting anypony.”

“Fine…”

“That’s ok. I don’t like hurting others. Unless it's emotionally.”

“Okay! Okay. Let’s-“

She only registered what Maud had said a few seconds after she said it, and stared at her. She stared back, emotionless as ever, wearing the face of Babs Seed.

Houyggh.

“L-Let’s make a plan.” She said, and looked down at the dusty floor to start drawing a little map.

“I know the best way in.” Maud mentioned, casually.

AppleJack looked at Maud. “How? You’re a rock farmer. How in Equestria do you know how to rob a bank!?”

“I learned.”

“I… Ok. Checks out.”

Couldn’t argue with that.

“Rosemary!!! Daaarrrlliiinnnggggg!!! How aaarrreeeeee youuuuu!”

Rainbow Dash, in her spiritual Rarity cosplay, happily walked into the flower shop next to the bank, where the flower covered mare behind the counter squealed in delight. AppleJack and Babs followed in after them. AJ knew Rosemary vaguely as one of Rarity’s Manehattan contacts, but Rainbow Dash had apparently had to sit through an entire cafe dinner with them, wanting no more than to fly into a window and get stunned like a bird.

“Raaarityy!!!! How are you!” Rosemary exclaimed, moving in for a hug. Rarity stopped her.

‘Huuubupbupbup!! I’m on a strictly no touch policy! My mane must be PERFECT as I am going on tour with AppleJack here! We are going to tour the land and cheer everypony up! Which reminds me, can we borrow your cellar for a bit? I need to stay out of sunlight for an hour to perfect my contour.”

Rosemary nodded happily. “Anything for you, Rarity belle!” She said, and showed them to the basement.

“Thhhannkkk you Dddaaarrling!!!!”

The three would be bank robbers descended down into the cellar, the trap door above them closing.

“… how the fuck did that work!?”

Rainbow Dash let out a little laugh of disbelief.

“It’s Rairity’s pretty privilege.” Said AppleJack, smirking a little as she went up to the wall. She was only half joking.

“WHAT! Are you saying I’M not pretty usually?” Rainbow Dash complained, but she was smiling. She wasn't taking it badly.

“you are, but you never shower.”

Maud could be brutal sometimes.

“… Point taken.”

“… Dash, are you sure that the rest of this plan is gonna work?” Asked Applejack, as she turned her hind legs to the wall.

“Pfft, of course?”

“And you’re not just saying that because we’re already here?”

“When have I ever sent anypony astrayyyyyokay don’t answer that.”

AppleJack shook her head. “If Granny Smith ever finds out about this… I’ll be apple pie.” She said, and turning around, struck the wall with a powerful kick. The wall crumbled almost immediately, leaving even AppleJack somewhat surprised. Either the wall was very old, or AppleJack was far stronger than she even realised.

“WHAT IN EQUESTRIA!?”

Rosemary had opened the hatch and was staring down at the three.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”

“we’re robbing a bank.” Said Maud.

“MAUD!” Groaned Rainbow Dash. “Don’t worry about it, Rosey! It’s to save the world!”

She hopped through the new hole, Maud following behind quickly. AppleJack was left there standing on her own, looking up at a flabbergasted Rosemary.

“Uhm… Ma’am.” She said, gently tipping her cowboy hat and heading through the hole with the others.

The basement vault level of the bank seemed deserted.

“Okay… we just gotta find Rarity’s vault!” Rainbow Dash declared. “Number 637! Looks like it’s… this way! Come my daaarllinngggs!”

AppleJack couldn’t quite believe that she was doing this. Robbing a bank with a Rainbow Dash who looked like Rarity, and a Maud that looked like her little cousin.

By Celestia, this was confusing.

Eventually, after a lot of searching, they came to the right bank vault. It had a huge almost comically large brass door, and had the signature of one Rarity Belle on the plaque beside it.

“FINALLY!” said Rainbow Dash, and went to turn the safe handles.

Nothing happened.

“Huh. That's weird. Why’s it not moving?”

“You need to put the code in by turning the little spinner.” Said AppleJack, who seemed to be starting to get a little twitchy. It had been about 6 minutes since they had busted down that wall, and she kept on thinking she could hear distant hoofsteps.

“Oh! Awesome! What is the code?” Rainbow Dash asked.

AppleJack turned to look at Rainbow Dash. She could feel her eye twitch a little.

“Did you not get the code from Rarity!?”

“I thought the guy at the bank would have the code!”

“THEN HOW-” She stopped herself from shouting anymore. “Sorry. Ok. Do we have a backup plan.”

“I do.” said Maud, pulling out what looked like a pipe bomb from her small bag.

“MAUD!” said AppleJack with fear, putting her hooves up. “W-When did you have time-”

“I’ve been carrying one around for a few days now, ever since I became short and southern. I thought it could come in useful.”

“I said no bomb!” AppleJack said firmly. “It could take this whole building down!”

“Fine.” Maud put it away. Rainbow Dash looked disappointed. “I wanted to see the bomb…”

AppleJack looked at the safe, and approached it. She shut her eyes tight. Think, AppleJack… Think…

What could the code possibly be? It was one that Rarity had set, so…

She put her hoof on the wheel, and turned it to 4. Then, she turned it to 7. Her birthday; July 4th.

What other numbers were significant to Rarity?

…

Silently, she turned the dial to 54. The number Rarity had got when they had gone bowling together.

Then… she turned it to 123. The number she had got.

She took a deep breath, and turned the handle.

It didn’t budge.

Disappointment flowed through her as she sat back down, hat over eyes. Rainbow Dash tilted her head.

AJ scolded herself. She was a fool to think Rarity really cared about her like that. Why would she remember just a dumb little bowling game they had shared? It’s not that it actually meant anything to her. Why would she set her bank code to something like that!? Rarity had far more important things to worry about.

Rainbow Dash looked at her, noticing the frustrated little blush on AppleJack’s cheeks.

“Uhh… don’t suppose you know what I should do in this situation?” She whispered to Maud. Maud looked at her dead in the eyes.

“if you are coming to me for emotional advice…” she turned back to look at AppleJack. “We truly are fucked.”

AppleJack looked up. There was Rarity… and yet it wasn’t her. And that hurt so much.

“Now is not the time…” she growled to herself, but quite audibly. “Why is this hurtin’ so much all of a sudden!?” She said, seemingly asking Rainbow Dash pleadingly. “I was fine before! Everything was fine! But now she ain’t her, she’s you- why does it sting like nettles on the muzzle!?”

“I… uhhhhh….” She said, glancing to Maud (who was busy looking at a snail on the floor. Effervescent).

Great.

“Uhm… well I… I know that it’s… it’s not easy being in the wrong body. And I’m really sorry that I’m in THIS body and it’s causing so much problems for you. So… I’m going to do what I think Rarity would do right now to try and make you feel better.” She said, and took a deep breath, and walked up to her.

…

SMACK.

“HAY-“

“AppleJack! SNAP! Out of it! You can admire and fawn over Rarity later, now go and get that bank vault open! I don’t care if you have to destroy the whole BUILDING!…”

The pair were right up in eachothers faces now again, AppleJack blushing crimson.

Rainbow was getting better at this.

Without even thinking, AppleJack stood up and with a single powerful kick of both hind legs completely bashed in the vault door.

Alarms started blaring, red light filling the corridors as the distant sound of hooves could be heard echoing down the hallways.

AppleJack blinked. She didn’t know she had the power to do that.

“Looks like you being down bad for Rarity really makes you strong.” Maud commented, casually walking past the others and into the vault.

“Gosh darn, she doesn’t let up.” murmured Rainbow, rushing in after her. Applejack was, once again, left flashbanged.

“HEY! HOOVES UP!”

AppleJack flinched as the magic beam crossed over her head. The guards were here; a few unicorns, two Pegasi one real burly looking earth pony were Charing towards them, all wearing dark glasses and ear pieces.

“Shoot.” She grumbled, leaping on into the vault. The constant droning of the alarm was making her mind start to go a bit fuzzy. She turned to face the hole in the wall, ready to defend herself. It didn’t count as hurting other ponies if it was self defense.

Even though they kind of did instigate this by breaking the bank's property.

“Where is it… AHA! Found it! Look, AJ! I found the gem! It's right here! Next to… a…”

“Next to a what?” AJ asked, but it sharpened into a pinpoint focus when she turned to check what Rainbow Dash was looking at.

Nexto the gemstone was a small cardboard crate labeled 'For future use'. A dazzling, gem encrusted hat that shimmered as the red light's rotating beams passed over it. It was exactly AppleJack's size, and had two small love hearts embroidered on each size.

One yellow, like her hair.

One purple, like Rarity's hair.

Love hearts.

It was in her vault.

To be used for future use.

What.

“AJ! BEHIND YOU!”

AppleJack didn’t even flinch as she kicked behind her, sending the huge earth pony flying.

“DARN! U-UH! SORRY, SIR!” She cried out as the Pegasus flew at her. Her general unsteadiness and the Pegasus’s training caused her to lose her footing, leaving her on the floor trying to swat the pegasus away.

Maud had attached herself to a pegasi like a gremlin, causing much confusion and delay.

Rainbow Dash was left facing off against a pegasus. She grinned, and spread her wings out wide, forgetting she didn’t have wings anymore. She blinked as the pegasus charged.

She let out a squeak and managed to duck, the pegasus managing to stop themself hitting a wall.

What would Rarity do?

Rainbow Dash focused hard on her horn, channelling all the latent magic there.

“Magic super rainbow death laserrrrrrr…. ACTIVATE!”

Her horn sparked weakly.

“I said ACTIVATE!” She said frustratedly, shaking her horn around like somepony trying to use a lighter.

“YAH NEED TO…” AppleJack was struggling to get her hoofing again. “E-EMOTION! HAVE STRONG EMOTION!”

“I'M TRYING MY BEST!” She snarled at her in frustration and as she did the beam of energy shot out, clocking the Pegasus in the wing and causing them to spin out and get knocked out by hitting their head off a the vault’s wall.

“Oh wow-“ she said, glancing over at AppleJack who had successfully thrown the Pegasus into one of the unicorns.

“Alright!! Just four l-“ Applejack had started speaking, but was stopped by the form of the filly currently inhabited by Maud tying up the final unicorn with rope and looking up at her.

“How did- how in Equestria did you do that!?” AppleJack asked.

“I used rope.”

“Why did I think I’d get a response. Come on!” She said, scooping up Rainbow and Maud onto her back and started galloping down the hallway.

Eventually, they reached the hole they had entered, but upon looking inside, there were at least 20 Manehatten Guard ponies waiting there to attack. So that wasn’t an option.

The gang kept on running, and with hoof steps echoing around the maze like hallways of the lower vaults, they eventually found some stairs headed upwards. Unfortunately, it was stairs into another section of the vaults. However, as AppleJack strained, she could hear the very faint noises of ponies and taxis up above.

“We’re under a street. I can tell by the moisture and decay on the rocks here.” Maud pointed out.

“Okay… so we just need to get up above, right?” Said AppleJack, frowning. Even with her incredible strength. She couldn’t just bust through five feet of bedrock.

“How are we meant to do that!? We’d need a stupid amount of power! I don’t know how to use this horn yet, nothing less than a BOMB would get us-“

The two ponies eyes met, then slowly turned to Maud. Maud was already holding the device.

“Oh. So now you want a bomb.”

It had already been a strange day in Manehattan.

But the street outside the bank violently exploding and two elements of harmony along with a child bursting out and escaping into the distance really took the cake.

The ensuing chase had left a fair amount of destruction in their wake, with a couple of smashed windows and broken street lamps as the large majority of the Manehatten guard was seemingly after them. Thankfully, from some clever pathfinding from Rainbow dash and the brick wall destroying powers of AppleJack, the pair had managed to escape to an abandoned house by the harbour, where they now sat, exhausted.

The pair looked at each other as they lay down, grins wide on their faces. Applejack’s was an unbelievable one of ‘Did we just do that?’ whereas Rainbow Dash’s was one of ‘HOLY SHIT WE JUST DID THAT!’.

“I need to leave now.” Maud declared suddenly and started walking out.

“W-Wait!” Cried Rainbow Dash. “You can’t just leave!?”

“I can. I am able to move my legs…” she shook each leg. “And when I move all four of them in unison.. I am able to walk to the door.” She displayed this by walking to the door.

“Where are you going to go?” Asked AppleJack, the big horse rolling onto her front. “Please, Maud. You’re in my little cousin’s body. I just want to make sure that you’re going to be safe.“

“I’m going back to Babs’s parents house. they will want to protect their daughter from the horse guard. I look like their daughter. They will understand.’ she looked out the door, and back at them.

“I am very happy to call you two my friends. Good luck with saving Equestria.”

And with that, she unceremoniously walked out.

Rainbow Dash chuckled.

“She sure is something…” she said, before moving onto more important matters. “So… what’s the plan?”

“Well… I reckon we lay low until about midnight. Then… we’ll have to…” she shut her eyes. “B-Borrow a boat.”

“Borrow?”

“Ok, fine, steal. B-But we’re bringing it back when this is all over!”

Rainbow Dash laughed at her, but AJ could tell it wasn’t one of cruelty. “Honest Apple, eh?”

AppleJack rolled her eyes, before getting out the small Crystal they had ‘withdrawn’ from the bank.

“All of that chaos for this Little Rock…” she said, turning it in her hoof.

It was shiny.

Very shiny.

AppleJack didn’t realise how shiny until it was too late.

She saw herself reflected in the gemstone.

What she did next was accidental. It didn’t even register that it’s something that she shouldn’t do.

AppleJack Blinked.

Without warning, AppleJack was on the floor, making a horrible mangled crying noise. Of course, it was no longer AppleJack.

As fate would cruelly twist it, this moment coincided exactly with when Fluttershy had been startled all the way at the peaks of the Crystal mountains.

Two reflections, connected by a curse.

AppleJack and Fluttershy had swapped.

Fluttershy, now in AppleJack’s body, was left coughing and spluttering, in a completely different room than she had been in before. Everything felt wrong. She could hear a voice trying to speak to her, but her head was swimming.

Her body felt so much bigger than it had before.

As she coughed, she felt the weird way her tongue felt in her mouth, and her lack of fangs as she ran her tongue along her teeth.

She knew what had to have happened.

She had swapped with somepony.

She let out a guttural cry of disorientation and shut her eyes tight, and tried to curl up into a tiny ball. Her huge frame didn’t allow this, however, and it was only as she felt a hoof on her shoulder that she really tuned into what was being said to her.

“A-AppleJack? Are you ok? Wait. Shit. You’re not…”

Rarity!?

But the real rarity was with her! Which means this had to be…

Did she call her…

Oh no.

Very slowly, she opened her eyes, and was greeted with the worn leather of a sunworn hat.

She knew immediately who she was. The thought was making her more nauseous by the moment.

“Uhm…” she managed to get out, the voice coming out being far lower and louder than her usual squeak. This made her stomach churn as it confirmed her fear.

She was AppleJack.

She felt the hat get tilted up, and she saw the body of Rarity looking down at her.

“Hi! Uhm, I’m Rainbow Dash. Now tell me who you are or I’ll- uhm- I’ll… use magic!”

She blinked. Rarity. No. Not Rarity. Rainbow… RAINBOWDASH!

“F… fl….” She stuttered out in a mix of shock, happiness and severe emotional breakdown.

Rainbow narrowed her eyes. “Fl? Go on! Spit it out!”

“I-I’m… Flu… fl-“ she managed to get out before suddenly she felt Rarity’s forelegs suddenly surround her.

RainbowDash knew. Immediately.

There is nopony else who spoke in that tone…

“You’re… you’re here… I’m… oh, Fluts… I-I-I’ve missed you… I’m so sorry…” she said, opening sobbing. This in turn made the floodgates for Fluttershy burst wide open too, and the pair were left in each other’s embrace, into each other's necks…

Fluttershy was inconsolable. She had failed. The one thing she had told Twilight she could be useful for. She had failed.

She now knew why she could see her reflection. Centuries ago, mirrors were lined with silver to help them reflect. Silver was a vampire's weakness, and she had read somewhere that vampires could see their reflection in them.

Vampires…

Her tongue ran along her flat teeth.

She didn’t feel the empty feeling of blood.

If she didn’t…

Then who did.

Fluttershy suddenly screamed, skidding upwards and slamming against a wall, the whole foundations of the building shaking with her unknown strength.

Rainbow Dash tried to reassure her. “Hey! Hey! S-Stay calm! F-Fluts! Please! We can do this! We can-“

“N-NO! Y-YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” She wailed, smashing her hoof into the floorboard, cracking it in two.

“A-AppleJack is m-me now! And… she… she doesn’t know…”

She froze still, staring at the floor. She had realised something terrible.

“A-AppleJack will find out I-I’m a vampire!”

There was a horrible long pause. Fluttershy slowly looked up at Rainbow Dash who looked back with a terrified, perplexed expression. Fluttershy didn't mean to say that.

Eventually, Rainbow Dash managed to sputter out:

“You’re a WHAT!?”

Author's Note

Well that escalated quickly

Thanks for reading!

I wonder how AppleJack will deal with the unexpected bloodlust that Fluttershy endures, and how Fluttershy deals with being 10 times as strong as she was before :)

Next chapter will mostly be catching up with Twilight, Trixie and PinkiePie on their adventure to hell! WAHOO!

That time the girls had to beat up an Alicorn

🎇CHAPTER 2 🎇

That time the girls had to beat up an Alicorn

CURRENT STATUS

Twilight inhabits Trixie

Trixie inhabits Twilight

RainbowDash inhabits Rarity

Rarity inhabits RainbowDash

“What. The Fuck.”

RainbowDash sat covered in a pile of ribbons, fabric, needles and other sewing equipment, staring at her newly pristine hooves. The sudden swap had shocked her so much that she had collapsed back into one of Rarity’s shelves. She looked up at the mirror to confirm her horrified suspicion.

She was Rarity.

“N-No!? W-What? I’m HER!?”

Everything felt wrong. The familiar comforting feeling of her wings at her side had of course vanished, and there was a strange feeling flowing through her. It kind of felt like the feeling of drinking cold water on a hot day, and the coldness spreading around one’s body. Only it was always there, shimmering in the background, all coming to a point on her forehead.

Gingerly, RainbowDash held her pale hoof and placed it on her new horn. She let out a little wince as it sparked.

Where was Fluttershy. She needed Fluttershy. Fluttershy would- Okay well she wouldn’t know what to do, but she’d do that thing of hurriedly scrambling to make her feel better.

She needed to get back to Fluttershy, who was most likely at the castle!

Cautiously, she managed to get up onto her hooves and surveyed her surroundings. She was in Rarity’s bedroom, which was luckily not an unfamiliar place for her; she had been called in for emergency dress support many times (even though she didn’t particularly know why it was HER that was needed). She slowly moved towards the door, her legs feeling weird and soft. Pausing, she felt her mane. It felt so… clean. She shuddered; Rarity always had so much product in her hair. Sure, it made it look lovely, but it was WAY more effort than RainbowDash was willing to put in.

This was all so wrong.

And if she was Rarity… wouldn’t that mean that…

Rarity was her?

Thoughts of Rarity’s reaction and Fluttershy trying to comfort her flooded her mind.

She needed to get to the Castle.

She could feel her pulse rise rapidly as she managed to stumble out into the main corridor of the upstairs.

“A-Anypony? Hello?” she called out, voice quivering. Her ear flicked in discomfort at hearing Rarity’s voice come out through her own.

“You alright Rarity?” Sweetie Belle trotted out of her room, looking concerned. “Uhhm… you don’t look so good” she commented upon seeing her ‘sisters’ discomfort.

“I’m… Not…” she said, looking down at Sweetie Belle. Something about seeing her looking up at her like Scootaloo would usually look up at her sent all the blood running to her head. She stumbled to and fro for a moment… then crashed down onto the floor.

Rainbow felt herself get shaken in an attempt to wake her, but her head was still swimming.

“Uhm… Is that you, RainbowDash?”

“So you’re telling me you somehow switched bodies with Dash? How is that even possible!”

“I don’t know, Sweets. But we are going to try and collect the elements together all in one place to try and figure out a plan to stop this dreadful mess!”

It was that last voice that made her eyes shoot open.

It was her own voice!

It was a strange sensation, lying on the floor and seeing yourself look down upon you. Well, you but with… a cleaner mane?

Carefully, RainbowDash rolled onto her front, and stared with wide eyes at Rarity, who in turn stared back. Both of them were locked in a strange existential staring contest.

RainbowDash’s eyes then turned to see-

“Fluts!”

She shot up and hugged her tight, causing the usual squeak of shock from Fluttershy as she awkwardly hugged back.

“Please, RainbowDash! Be a little bit more delicate with my body!” Rarity piped up nervously. “You’re going to ruin my mane!”

“Oh PLEASE!” She turned, glaring at Rarity. “The first thing you did with my AWESOME body was have a SHOWER!”

“Well, my DEAR! Your mane was REVOLTING! I can barely understand how you can cope with yourself!” She replied indignantly.

“Please stop fighting…” mumbled Fluttershy.

Fluttershy’s brain was, as most ponies were right now, in a flurry. It was made especially complicated since her girlfriend was kind of infront of her twice, and all she wanted right now was a hug from her. Yet, at the same time, she couldn’t think of anything more stressful.

Upon her request, the pair stopped arguing and looked to her. Both still seemed real upset. Fluttershy blinked a few times before realising they were waiting for her to say something.

“O-Oh! Uhm… W-Why is… are you-” she looked behind her. Nopony there. She looked back. “W-Why are you looking at me?”

“Because you’re in the right body, and thus you must help keep us right!” Said Rarity with a soft smile. RainbowDash growled at her (It was odd to hear rarity’s voice growling), before nodding at Fluttershy.

“Uhm.. what about-” Fluttershy looked down at Sweetie Belle.

“W-What? Me? Uhm, I’m like, 10 years old?” she protested.

“R-Right”.

Fluttershy gulped. She WAS going to have to be in charge. Shoot. They didn’t even know about THAT thing yet!

“U-Uhm.. I think we should go to t-the picnic and m-meet with… the others… Th-Then we need to try and… m-make sure that Trixie doesn’t do anything ridiculous.”

“Waitwaitwaitwaitwait-” Rainbowdash shook her head quickly, her curled hair bouncing everywhere.

“Trixie?”

“Uhm… Yes… she has… s-swapped placed with Twilight.” replied Fluttershy meekly.

“Well then why are we even still here? We need to get to the farm! NOW!” she declared, and leapt into the air… before crashing down painfully onto her front, winding herself. “OW!”

Rarity rolled her eyes as she trotted past, reminding her that “I’ve got your wings, dear.” She looked over to Sweetie Belle.

“Sweetie, can you warn your little crusader friends not to look into any mirrors? I would hate for any of you little ones to find yourself halfway across the continent in the body of a divorced father”.

Sweetie Belle shuddered, and nodded. “W-Will do! Right away!”

She glanced between RainbowDash and Rarity. “Golly this is confusing… S-Stay safe, sis!”

She galloped away out the door towards their treehouse.

Fluttershy gingerly led the way to the farm, the two swapped ponies behind her continuing to bicker.

“You’re slouching too much!” Rarity complained, moving over and using a hoof to try and Adjust RainbowDash’s posture. Rainbow shuffled away as they walked, scowling.

“How can you not slouch with the weight of the mane spray in this thing?” she replied, purposefully ruffling up the perfect curls in her mane.

“The nerve! How can you EXIST with a mane this messy? You look like you were dragged through a bush backwards, and then pushed through it again twice as hard!”

“Uhm…” Fluttershy looked back at Rarity. “I… I quite like how messy it is.”

“HA! See! My girls got my back!” Said RainbowDash in jubilation, and sidled up to give her a kiss on the cheek. She gave a little squeak and shook her head, keeping her at wings length by extending her wing, pushing the unicorn away. RainbowDash looked crestfallen, but understood.

“N-Not until we’ve sorted out all of… this…” she insisted. RainbowDash nodded, and gave an apologetic glance at Rarity. Rarity returned a sad smile.

“Sorry, Fluts.” said Rainbow, and the trio remained in an awkward silence until they finally arrived at the picnic.

“Hnnnnn……………… Grrrrnnnhhh…………”

Twilight was dragging along Trixie’s caravan with all of her might, but it was proving quite the challenge. She had done a quick spring clean of the inside as the idea of moving a cart that horrible made her feel sick to her stomach. She wished she had the lack of empathy that some ponies had and just left the caravan where it was, but Trixie was already essentially homeless. It would hurt everypony even more if Trixie was left without a roof.

She had been travelling for about an hour now, and wasn’t having the best time of it. She had worked out roughly where she was thanks to some handy signs, and thus knew it would take another few hours to get to ponyville. She hadn’t seen any other signs of anypony swapping, but she was still worried about the possibility.

Her worst fears would be realised as she passed through a small village of a few cottages and a tiny market store. From the market store ran Lyra Heartstrings, looking incredibly stressed out.

“I-I don’t know y’all!”

“Lyra! What's gotten into you!?” A green earth pony came out of the store looking perplexed. “Y-You love the book club!”

“A’h can barely read!” she wailed, and ran straight into Twilight. Twilight staggered back a little.

“Lyra! Are you ok?” She asked with concern, the small crumbs of concern eating away at the back of her mind. She then realised that she looked and sounded like Trixie. And thus Lyra’s reaction was to scream.

“N-NO! N-NOT YOU!”

“W-Wait! Lyra! It’s me! Twilight! I promise!” she said, trying her best to reassure her.

Lyra paused, her breathing still quite quick. She looked around at the other ponies staring at the pair.

“Y-You… got swapped too?” she said quickly.

Too?

Oh no.

It was spreading.

“Y-Yes! Uhm… who are you?” Twilight said, nodding.

“A-AppleBloom!”

Twilight’s heart quickened. AppleBloom??
“No! Oh this is bad… this is real bad…” she said, placing a hoof to her temple. “This is going to get out of control SO quickly.”

“D-Do you not know what's going on!?” replied AppleBloom, who looked like she was going to break down.

“I do. S-Sort of. Were you looking in a mirror when you swapped places?” She said, trying to remain as calm as possible.

“N-No… But ah was lookin at the lake…”

It was all reflective surfaces??

“Okay. Come on, Ly… A-AppleBloom. Sorry. Lets get back to Ponyville, there must be some way I can fix this mess.”

AppleBloom nodded. “U-Uhm… Twilight… is my horn meant to feel this…” She tilted her head, trying her best to look up at the horn that was on the corner of her upper peripheral vision. “Sparky?” she asked, tapping it. Sparks flew out which knocked her back onto her hind quarters.

“Y-You’ll get used to it. Come on.” she said, offering a hoof to help her up. The unicorn hesitated, but took it.

“... You don’t look very good as Trixie.” She said as they started to move.

“Well..." she said, frowning. "At least I'm not a filly"

"Hey!"

"Sorry."

AppleJack and PinkiePie sat there, listening to Fluttershy, Rarity and RainbowDash explain what was going on. Well, they could only guess what was really going on, but they were doing their best.

AppleJack looked horrified at this, and was giving a few awkward glances to Rainbowdash, who was avoiding eye contact with everypony. PinkiePie, on the other hand, thought that this was great fun.

“And, uhm… that's where we are now.” Fluttershy finished. Immediately, Pinkiepie had bounced over and was circling Rarity and AppleJack.

“THIS IS SO COOL! You get to be somepony else! That's AWESOME! RARITY can you fly? Have you tried flying? You can fly Rarity! And RAINBOW! You can make things float with your HEAD! I wish I had some sort of magic power! Alas, all i can do is make things appear with my mind when i need them! Anyway this is SO COOL I want to swap with Luna i would look SO cool with-”

AppleJack placed a hoof on her shoulder to calm her down a bit. Pinkiepie smiled apologetically to the exhausted looking swapped ponies.

“Well, sounds like we need to head over to Twi’s castle and make sure Trixie doesn’t destroy it.” she said, getting to her hooves.

“Uhm… I don’t wish to be a stick in the mud, but how are we exactly meant to stop her?” Asked Rarity, who’s wings were still twitching naturally from time to time.

“Yeah! Since we don’t have the best flyer in Equestria on our side, there's no hope at all!” Said RainbowDash, looking forlornly at her wings, stuck on somepony else's body.

“I don’t think it should be too much of a worry,” Said Rarity, looking back at her wings, “If I can barely use these things, then I don’t think we have to worry too much about Trixie, since she won’t know the more… destructive of Twilight’s spells.

“HEY! They have NAMES!” RainbowDash interjected.

“Who?” Rarity looked over in confusion.

“Uhh, my Wings? Windbreaker and Skyslasher?? And DON’T you dare disrespect them like that again!”

Rarity rolled her eyes.

“Fine.”

“Right then. Let's get going. Come on girls, we got a princess to catch!” Said AppleJack confidently. Pinkiepie nodded like a bobble head and started bouncing around, talking about all the ponies she’d like to be.

Fluttershy was beyond relieved that AppleJack was still in the correct body. This meant she could shrink back into being a supporting role. It was where she was most comfortable. But, she did need to remind everypony of one very important thing.

“R-Remember, everypony… nobody look into any mirrors, please…”

-

“TRIXIE! WE KNOW YOU’RE IN HERE!”

AppleJack was leading the pack as they entered the castle. “JUST COME DOWN HERE AND MEET US SO WE DON’T GOT TO GET VIOLENT!”

AppleJack’s southern twang reverberated around the empty halls as the uneven clip clops of the 5 moved towards Twilight’s bedroom.

Slowly the door creaked open, and the smugly smiling form of Twilight Sparkle came around the corner. AppleJack tensed. It looked just like Twilight. But she could tell from the expression who the pony really was.

“So! You worked out my little secret…” Trixie said menacingly as she grinned and stretched her wings out wide. Her right eye twitched a little.

Fluttershy frowned. She knew all to well that the eye twitch that was a tell of Twilight’s, meaning that she was suppressing an emotion, so it would only make sense that Trixie may inherit some of her traits.

“We sure did!” RainbowDash came to the front. “And let me tell you, you are in WAY over your head.”

“Really? Because it seems to me like I’m more great and powerful than I EVER could have dreamed to be!” She said, her horn glowing. Rainbowdash was surrounded by the purple magic aura and she was flung into the air.

“WUWUAGGHH!” She cried out, trying her best to flap her non-existent wings to stop her from Rainbow Crashing into the floor. Luckily, AJ was there and managed to catch her.

“Trixie, will you just be reasonable for once!?” Rarity moved forward now, but AJ placed a hoof across her chest to stop her from moving closer.

“Trixie. We don’t want a fight. Please. Whatever magic it is that’s caused you to swap with Twi also swapped RainbowDash and Rarity.” AppleJack said Firmly, but appeared to be ready to leap at her at a moments notice.

This shut Trixie up. It had spread!?

“Oh shoot, that’s probably-” she said, glancing behind her. “I assumed that she just meant me-”

AppleJack raised an eyebrow. “Want to run that one by me again? Who’s she”

Fluttershy was standing right behind AppleJack, peeking around the corner of her huge frame. Seeing Twilight act so… well, arrogant… was very disconcerting.

“Well! The great and powerful Trixie was merely lamenting on how hard of a life she had… then MIRROR Trixie went and made me swap with this beautiful and pretty princess!” She declared happily. All the others glanced between each other. Did she just say-

“So you’re telling me…”

It was Rarity this time, who marched forward. “YOU’RE to blame for all of this? You did this to ME!?”

“Well, in some ways… no?” she said hopefully, smiling sheepishly.
Fluttershy let out a little squeak as Rarity started to growl, her wings fwoofing out to a full spread.

“I’m going to fucking destory you” she said, and before anypony could do anything to stop her, Rarity launched herself at Trixie. Trixie leapt out of the way, and used her magic to once again push the newly turned pegasus into a wall with a loud thunk.

That was it.

“THAT'S IT!” RainbowDash snarled, and got into an aggressive stance. AppleJack was already in one, and PinkiePie had already summoned a Party Cannon.

Fluttershy stayed at the back, quietly whimpering. “P-Please… can’t we… uhm… r-resolve this… without any…”

It was too late.

AppleJack rushed in, and immediately got out her Lasso and started twirling it above her. RainbowDash didn’t really know how to use magic properly, so just stood still and strained. She tried her best to emulate what it felt like to tense one's jaw and make the blood rush to one’s head, but instead of her body, she used her innate magic. It started to work, and her horn began to spark, but Trixie had already risen up into the air with her new wings, and was charging up a spell. PinkiePie fired off the party cannon, but Trixie had managed to manoeuvre herself out of the way in time. “DARN YOU, MISFIRING ARTILLERY!!” The wall to the side of her was covered in streamers and confetti. It would take spike HOURS to clean all this up!

Where even was spike?

The author doesn’t know.

Rarity had managed to get to her hooves again, and was looking back at her wings.

“Come on, girls! You can do THIS!” she hissed at them, and began to flap with them. Steadily she began to rise.

“Uhmm,, they’re BOYS!?” Snapped Rainbowdash, who had just managed to let off a small magical beam at Trixie. “AHA! TAKE THAT, TRIX-”

Trixie had responded with a beam of her own, which blasted RainbowDash all the way down to the end of the corridor, straight past Fluttershy.

“EEK! R-RAIR- RAIN BO- BOW!” She said, getting flustered and confused again. Trixie had just hurt her! Her eyebrow furrowed, and she glared at the alicorn.

AppleJack let off a Lassoo, and managed to catch Trixie right over the head. This dragged her down onto the floor, but before AppleJack could consolidate, Trixie shot off another spell!

It hit AppleJack directly in the muzzle, to which she appeared to vanish, all that was left being her hat.

“N-NOOOO!!!” Cried out Rarity, who lost all composure. She shot over to the hat and dropped to her hind legs, already starting to bawl her eyes out. “S-SHE WAS SO YOUNG! SO HANDSOME!”

“Uhm… Rain-Rarity-” A high pitched voice came from under the hat.

Rarity’s crying stopped immediately as she lifted the hat up. AppleJack was fine, she was just about an inch tall.

“Don’t worry ‘bout me! You need to catch that alicorn!” She squeaked up angrily at Rarity.

Rarity nodded, and put the hat back down over her.

“WAIT DON’T JUST-”

AppleJack couldn’t protest as the leather walls were placed around her once more.

PinkiePie had sprung up, and with Trixie distracted by the hilarious idea of a tiny AppleJack managed to get off a good kick to the muzzle, causing her to do a full spin. Trixie replied quickly, shooting off a whole number of beams towards her and Rarity. They all missed, but the crystalline nature of the castle meant they shot around everywhere, bouncing off walls and almost hitting herself on many occasion.

“GET HERRRRRRRR!””

Pinkiepie grabbed onto her wings and held them together, as Rarity managed to swipe her legs. This disarmed Trixie for long enough for her to be pinned down, but Trixie was still an Alicorn and being an alicorn meant she was stronger than an average pony. Unfortunately, the abnormally strong one among them was currently the size of a flea.

“RELEASE ME AT ONCE! I DIDN’T MEAN TO CAUSE THIS MESS! I JUST WANTED TWILIGHT TO UNDERSTAND HOW I FELT!” hissed Trixie, still firing off spells wildly. A few of them hit the pair, and their grip loosened.

“WELL THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST COME AND TALK TO US??? LIKE A NORMAL PONY???” Pinkiepie Screeched back. Trixie was just about to break free when-

CCRRASSSHHHH!

The vase smashed over Trixie’s head, knocking her out cold. Her body went limp and she flopped back onto the floor. Pinkiepie and Rarity blinked at each other, then looked up at the ceiling.

Fluttershy had silently flown up with one of the many vases that lined the corridors of the castle, and dropped it down onto Trixie. She smiled, a little proud of herself.
“S-Sometimes… i-it pays to be quiet…” she said, before quickly (well… as quickly as fluttershy would go) flew down the corridor to the still stirring RainbowDash.

“Did I… win?” She asked, her mane now in a frazzled mess (causing much dismay from Rarity).

“U-Uhm…” she said, looking back at the wrecked hallway, then back at her wrecked (sort of) girlfriend. “Yes. I think so” she said softly, and went in to give her a little peck on the cheek. She stopped before touching, and glanced back at Rarity.

Rarity smiled, and gave a little nod of permission. Fluttershy smiled back, and proceeded to give RainbowDash a kiss on the cheek.

After a few minutes, AppleJack was back to regular size, and the gang had reconveined in the main hall. Trixie was on the table, still out cold and bound together with AppleJack’s lasso. Rarity had found one of their magic nullifiers from the dungeon. They had never had to use the dungeon before, but it was important that it was there for times like these. The small cone had been fit on the Alicorn’s horn, meaning that when she did eventually wake up, she wouldn’t be able to do much damage.

They had just finished tying her up when the main door opened, revealing a scared looking Lyra and an exhausted looking… Trixie!?

“I-I’m here! I-Is everypony safe? Oh I… what have you done to my body?” ‘Trixie’ said.

Everypony took a moment to register, before everypony sighed in one big sigh of relief.

“Twilight!”

PinkiePie immediately attached herself to Twilight, squeezing her super tight.

“P-PINKIE! PLEASE! T-TRIXIE DOESN’T EAT WELL HER BONES ARE BRITTLE!”

“Hehe! Sorry!”

‘Lyra’ waddled in, and immediately started crying when she saw AppleJack.

“S-SIS!!!” she wailed, immediately falling to her hooves and hugging onto AJ’s forlegs.

“U-Uh… Lyra?” She said, dumbfounded.

Twilight gave a sad little smile as she came on in. “It’s AppleBloom”

AppleJack looked between the full grown adult pony infront of her, and then at one of her best friends inhabiting the bodies of one of her least favourite ponies of all time. She rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Sure… sure it is…” she said in defeat, and sat down to hug the mint green unicorn in front of her. “There there girl… you’re big sis is here…” she said softly, squeezing her tight (but not too tight applejack could probably break all of her bones).

“A-Are you… you?”

“Yeah, Blooms.. I’m me…”

Twilight tried to not shed a tear as she watched the strange display of sisterly affection, and went over to the table where Trixie lay, still unconscious.

It was… disconcerting to say the least.

Twilight sat at her chair, and just stared for a moment. Strange, morbid thoughts were flying through her mind.

Is this what it would be like to see your own dead body?

She decided to shake that thought from her mind for now, and instead, let herself get caught up with the happenings.

Everypony sat in their correct seats, with AppleBloom sitting squeezed in tight nexto her sister for support and comfort.

“I spoke to this strange… mirror entity. A-And from what i understand, If anypony looks into a mirror at the same time as somepony else, no matter where they are, there is a chance they’ll swap bodies. W-Which is what happened to us.”

Everypony shared nervous looks and sat in worried silence. Rarity eventually piped up.

“Well then… why don’t we all just look into mirrors at the same time again? I could get back to my beautiful body that way.”

“It ain't worth the risk, Rarity” AppleJack piped up. “We saw with Blooms and Twi that there doesn’t seem to be much of a distance issue. What if one of us gets sent into the other side of Equestria? Then that’ll make fixin’ this whole disaster a whole other kettle of apples.”

Nobody questioned her countryisms at this point.

“Then… I think we need to do what we always do…” said fluttershy quietly.

Twilight looked at her, head tilted.

Everypony was looking at fluttershy.

Oh,

Uhm…

Fluttershy tapped her hooves together awkwardly whilst looking at the floor.

“... read books until we can work out what is going on.”

Everyone exclaimed in realisation, nodding. Fluttershy smiled weakly.

“Good idea, fluts! To the-”

“AUuuuhghhh…”

Trixie was waking up!

Twilight thought she would be more prepared for this. She wasn’t.

She carefully moved down off her chair so she could be eye level with the tablebound Trix.

Trixie woke up to see… herself. Looking VERY unamused.

“... Oh my goodness…”

She managed to wiggle her way onto her front, her eyes lighting up.

“I never KNEW Trixie was this beautiful!”

Twilight was… stunned. Of all the things that she expected to hear her own voice say… that was not… one of…

She paused for a moment.

Trixie WAS kind of…

NO! Nononon not now.

NOT! Now.

She would deal with that later.

“You have A LOT of explaining to do'' Twilight hissed, clopping a hoof down beside Trixie’s head.

Trixie gulped.

“Well… you see…”

Trixie explained her whole interaction with the mirror entity, the whole time avoiding eye contact with anypony. Twilight could feel her anger rising, but the emotions were a mixed up bubbling cauldron of anxiety. Hearing bad news coming out of your own mouth but in somebody else’s way of speaking was making her feel a little nauseous.
“And then… I think somebody hit me with a vase? And then I woke up here! Seeing the hottest horse in all of Equestria standing right infront of me!” she finished, sticking her tongue out.

“... are you enjoying that you can just make me say whatever you want?” asked Twilight with an exhausted groan.

“Oh, Twilight… you have no idea~”

“Right.” Twilight stood back.

“I’m… going to release you now. And you’re going to help us.”

There were sudden cries of protests from all of her friends.

“Darling, are you sure that's wise?” Rarity piped up. Twilight was surprised that RainbowDash would be the cautious one, before having to remind herself that wasn’t Rainbow. That was Rarity.

Celestia, this was going to get confusing.

Some may say it already was confusing.

“And in return, we won’t tell anypony that this whole mess is your fault.”

Trixie stared with wide eyes. Of all things she had expected to hear… this was certainly not one of them.

“You’d… really… me? You want… me?”

“Well, as much as it pains me to say,” Twilight started, already feeling that this was going to send Trixie’s ego to the stratosphere, “ you’re the most powerful one of us here magically now.”

Trixie’s eyes sparkled a little.

“... I’ll help you if you say the line.”

“What line!?”

“You know what line.”

Twilight blinked, before groaning loudly. Through gritted teeth, she said:

“You are the most great and powerful.”

“YIPPEEE!!!!!! SHE SAID IT! SHE SAID ITTTTTTTT! TWILIGHT CALLED ME GREAT AND POWERFUL! SHE SAID THE LINEEEEEEEE! WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Trixie exclaimed, and started wiggling in her place. Twilight growled.

“Right, everypony. Let's get down to research. Trixie, I’ll free you out when it's time to leave.”

“WHAT!? Why don’t you want me to help research with your silly books?”

“Can you read, Trixie.”

There was a long pause.

“If there are pictures, yes!”

“...”

“...”

“... fine.”

Twilight released her, and she did a big stretch in a cat like way, her wings extending fully out.

“Thank you so much, my beloved-”

“Shut up, Trixie, and get to the library.”

“Anyting for my princess~”

“TRIXIE!”

She cackled a little, but started to move with the others towards the library. AppleJack stayed right at her side, and whispered:

“Any funny business, and I'm going to kick your rear all the way to appleoosia. Got it?”

As Twilight was about to leave with them she felt a small tug on her strange blue tail. Turning round, she saw Fluttershy.

“Hi! I’m sorry about RainbowDash… I can’t even imagine how awful that must feel for you.”

“I-Its ok… uhm… there's something else I wanted to talk to you about.” she said, cutting her off a bit. She looked even more sheepish than usual. Twilight frowned. This was clearly something that Fluttershy didn’t want anypony to know.

“Of course! Whats up!” she said, trying to be as supportive as possible, well aware her current appearance would probably be freaking her out a little.

“Well… uhm… I think I… I think I might have to…” she shuffled uncomfortably. “I m-might have to… t-take the lead on this mission.”

“Really?”

Fluttershy had never volunteered for anything like this.

“Uhm… it's about… y-you know how you said that ponies only swapped places when they are looking at their reflection?”

“Yes?”

“Well…” she said, and gulped. “You see…”

“I haven’t got a reflection.”

Author's Note

Thanks for reading this chapter!

Go follow my Tumblr for horse drawings and more!

Had alot of fun with this one! Might go back and rewrite the fight scene later.

But!

Fluttershy has no reflection. I wonder what THAT means...

That time Trixie was, unfortunately, the key to saving the world

💎CHAPTER 3 💎

That time Trixie was, unfortunately, the key to saving the world

CURRENT STATUS

Twilight inhabits Trixie

Trixie inhabits Twilight

RainbowDash inhabits Rarity

Rarity inhabits RainbowDash

AppleBloom inhabits Lyra Heartstrings

“You don’t have a reflection?”

Twilight was confused.

“N-No.” she said, nervously shuffling. “N-Not…” she was speaking really slowly, as if getting each and every syllable out was taking a great monumental effort. “Not since that… I-Incident with the bats…”

Realisation struck Twilight like a runaway freight train and she could feel her stomach tie itself into unsteadying knots as she absorbed what Fluttershy was saying.

“B-But my spell… it reversed it!” she said, trying to convince herself more than anything.

Fluttershy gave a sad smile as she shook her head, and opened her mouth wide. Her fangs remained, razor sharp and tinted very slightly red.

“You’re…”

“A vampire.” she confirmed quietly. Twilight placed her head to the floor in angry guilt, pointed at herself.
“How did I never notice…” she mumbled to herself.

“Well… I don’t really open my mouth that much when I speak. But Twilight… P-Please don’t tell the others. E-Especially RainbowDash.”

“Fluts!” Twilight said, sitting down and placing a hoof on her shoulder, slightly hurt.

“W-Why didn’t you tell anypony? We could have helped you! We could have figured out a way to fix it! We’re all here, you know that-” Twilight said, but Fluttershy quickly shook her head again.

“I-I’ve already looked everywhere. E-Even… places I really shouldn’t have looked” she replied, avoiding eye contact. What did that mean?

“B-But there’s no cure. And I didn’t want anypony to treat me any differently. So it was easier just to… not tell anypony.” she finished, awkwardly rubbing her hooves together.

Twilight felt like a failure. She had failed Fluttershy in ways she didn’t even realise. This had already been a horrible day, and this was making it so much worse. And there was one question that had surfaced that she didn’t really want to know the answer to.

“And how do you…” she glanced at Fluttershy’s fangs. “You know…”

Fluttershy smiled a tiny bit. “T-Toby was kind enough to let me feed of him when I need to.”

“Who’s toby?”

“You know the friendly bear who lives near my cottage?”

Right.

Fluttershy loved bears.

“And does that do the job?” Twilight asked delicately.

“J-Just about. I’ve only lost control once. On m-my first week after the spell.” she said shamefully. “L-Luckily, Zekora was the pony I went after, and she has all sorts of protections… She gave me a potion to drink t-that helps keep the craving down.”

So Zekora knew too. Twilight nodded. Zekora was trustworthy and thus she understood why she hadn’t revealed her secret to anypony.

“But what I don’t understand is why this means you think you should take the lead… I know how much you hate having to do that.” Twilight pointed out.

“Twi… I don’t h-have a reflection. That means I can’t swap with anypony else.”

The cogs turned in Twilight’s brain enough to understand.

“Which means that we don’t have to worry about you swapping with anypony and having to re-explain everything! Fluttershy! You’re a GENIUS!” She said, smiling wide and giving her a tight hug. Fluttershy squeaked and wormed her way out of it, leaving Twilight looking crestfallen.

“Uhm… Y-You still… l-look like… Trixie…”

“Shoot. Sorry, forgot… heh” she said awkwardly. “W-Well… thank you for telling me. I appreciate it alot.”

“I-I’m only doing it b-because I need RainbowDash back.” she said.

“But… she hasn’t gone?”

“You know what I mean.” She reinstated firmly, eyes watering a bit. “I want t-to be able to be sad and crawl into her arms and cry and for her to hug me and not worry about if it’s Rarity or if it’s actually her but a unicorn and this is all just. A lot and. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do…” she said, eventually breaking down as she lay on the floor, hooves over her head as she trembled.

Twilight was caught at an impasse. She couldn’t help her. Even her girlfriend couldn’t really help her.

“… would you like me to get AppleJack?”

Fluttershy didn’t look up but nodded briskly.

“Okay. I’ll go get her. I will tell her it’s just about Dashie.

AppleJack had been the pony who supported Fluttershy the most when she was in her multiple year long ‘I like RainbowDash but can’t tell her” phase, and had often comforted her at a low. It would certainly be more helpful than a pony who looked like Trixie.

“Come on now, Trixie.” Said AppleJack as she lead Trixie through the hallway towards the main library. Trixie happily trotted along, occasionally flexing her wings to show off a bit.

AppleJack didn’t like this one bit. Not only was Trixie inhabiting the body of one of her best friends, she was also inhabiting the body of one of the most powerful creatures in all of Equestria. She was just glad that she was too inexperienced to actually use said magic in any useful way.

Trixie, on the other hoof, was having the time of her life. Not only did Twilight know she had her body, not ONLY was she now one of the most powerful creatures in all of Equestria, she was in the unique position of being able to fawn over the body of her favourite pony of all time: herself! The fact that her arch nemesis currently inhabited that body was just the icing on the cake~

“Hey! AJ!”

Speak of the devil~

Trixie turned and WOW… What a sight. Herself! She stuck out her tongue as Twilight approached. Twilight rolled her eyes.

“What's up?” asked AppleJack.

“Well, Fluttershy, she…” she said, getting momentarily distracted by Trixie looking right at her.

“What's wrong, Twilight?”

“... Fluttershy isn’t taking this very well, and I think she’d mostly just… like a hug from you right now.” Twilight said delicately. AppleJack nodded, a little confused. “Of course. But why wouldn’t she…” she started, but looked back at the others. RainbowDash seemed to be having the exact same thought.

“... S-She’s having trouble, uhm…” Twilight paused too. An uncomfortable understanding covered the room, with AppleJack nodding and moving through to the main hallway, past everypony else.

Trixie could see RainbowDash’s eyes tear up a little as she turned and hurriedly left. Rarity let out a sad little sigh and followed up after her. Twilight glanced back at AppleJack as she walked into the library, with AppleBloom awkwardly following Trixie.

Trixie blinked a few times. She was now alone. Everypony had forgotten about her. She could just leave. Fly off into the sunset. But something was stopping her…

This WAS her fault. She had caused the horrible uncomfortable situation. And if this issue was brought up by just two ponies swapping, she couldn’t even start to comprehend how much of a mess the whole continent was in now.

She didn’t want to be here anymore.

She turned to leave-

“And where do you think YOU’RE going?”

Pinkie Pie was right up in her face.

“You’re staying right here, missy!” she said, scowling at her.

“Trixie wasn’t going anywhere.” she insisted. PinkiePie’s eyes narrowed.

“I’ve got my eyes on you…” She said, placing her forehead on her muzzle.
“I can see that.” she said awkwardly, and tried to move back. Pinkie Pie stayed ‘glued’ on. She walked backwards a little and only when she turned did Pinkie unstick.

“Hehe… you may think you are great and powerful! But you forget! You’re dealing with the number one party pony in- oh is thAOKJHWOAHA!”

Trixie’s ear flicked as she turned around to see Pinkie Pie was on the floor, seemingly in shock!

Huh??

She looked around rapidly. Was she ok?

She saw an open door.

Oh no.

She very carefully peeked round the door. It was Twilight’s room, the mirror being opposite the door.

Pinkie had looked in a mirror.

She quickly used her magic to slam the door shut, and turned to face ‘PinkiePie’, who lay on the floor, looking at her hooves in fascinated shock. She wanted to cry for help…

But why would she?

None of these ponies cared about her. Why should she even bother? Trixie was competent! She could handle this herself! She didn’t need their help. Trixie was an alicorn princess now! And they didn’t need anypony's help!

“W-Who are you!” she asked sharply.

The pink horse looked up at Trixie, blinking a few times. A smile spread across her way in a very disconcerting way.

“I’m… P-PinkiePie!”

“...Yes, I’m aware. But who are you? As in, who’s brain do you have?”

“I told you! It’s me! Pinkie!” she said, bouncing up onto her hooves.

“But… you looked into a mirror,” said Trixie, slowly. “Doesn’t that mean you’d swap bodies with somepony?”

“... Yeah! I thought so too! I… just got a bit of a fright, that's all!” she said happily. “You’d be frightened if you looked in a mirror knowing you could suddenly be in somepony else's body!” she said, and started bouncing off towards the library. The way she bounced was definitely Pinkie Pie. “Come on! Let's go!” she said excitedly. “We aren’t going to solve this on our own, Twi!”

“...I’m Trixie.” she said suspiciously.

“Hehe! I know! Just trying to make sure you’re paying attention!” she giggled, and finished bouncing into the library.

Trixie stood there for a few moments. That was… Odd. Then again, it was PinkiePie. Nothing was off limits.

Shrugging, Trixie followed her into the library. It was probably nothing to worry about.

I’m sure.

Twilight was sitting with RainbowDash, who was gently crying into her. Twilight had an arm around her, and was shhhhing her to try and calm her down.

“It’s all going to be ok. We are going to sort this, RainbowDash” She said, giving the unnatural unicorn a squeeze. It didn’t seem to help.

“S-She doesn’t even want to l-look at me.” she whispered. Twilight could feel her heart break at hearing that. The worst thing was that she didn’t even know what to say to comfort her… because it was at least partially true.

Rarity had already grabbed a book and started reading, but her eyes kept on glancing up to the pair of them, her bottom lip trembling.

Auuughhghghhhhh…

“Come on, everypony!” PinkiePie had bounded in.

“I know you’re all sad, and this is stressful! This is very NOT very fun at all! But if we all work together, we can do it! I know we can! And if anypony needs anything at all, just give Pinkie a call!” she said. Everypony gave a little smile.

“She’s right.” said Twilight, standing up. “We need to fix this! Let's get to researching!” she said, and went over to the ‘ancient equestrian magic’ section.

RainbowDash wiped away her tears (being confused momentarily at why they seemed to be black (then remembering about Rairity’s mascara)) and shuffled over to one of the bookshelves. She was a terrible reader, but she’d do it for fluttershy. Anything to make her not have to suffer like this.

Trixie came in a little later than everyone else, still a bit unnerved by what had happened out in the hallway.

“Ah. Trixie.” Twilight called out, and trotted on over to her. Trixie took a deep breath, and then smirked as per.

“Aaaand what can I do for you?” she said, laying down comfortably. “I must say, Twilight, your body feels wonderful! You aren’t tired all the time and your bones don’t hurt!”

“Trixie, your body feels like you only eat pop tarts.” Twilight replied, already tired of this.

“And so what if I do?” Trixie asked innocently. She saw nothing wrong with this.

“And- may I ask, why is your fur so…itchy?” She asked, giving her side a little scratch as she sat down.

“Fleas” she said with a smile.

Twilight froze. She tried to tell if Trixie was joking or not.

Trixie was doing her ‘clearly you don’t have an oat fryer’ face.

She was unreadable.

Aloof.

An Enigma.

“...I am showering before we leave.”

She shuddered.

“Anyway… I need to… well…” Twilight was having trouble getting the words out.

“Go on, Twilight… Spit it out!” she said, sticking her tongue out again. Twilight gave a little growl.

“If this is going to work… there is quite a big possibility I’m going to have to teach you advanced magic. A-And If i do, please, please will you do as you’re told? All of Equestria is at stake.” she said, almost pleadingly.

Trixie’s smile only grew wider, and her tail twitched a few times out of excitement. “You mean.. I get to learn truly amazing magic!?”

“...Yes.”

“Taught by Twilight Sparkle?!”

“...Yes?”

“Personally?”
“How else did you think I’d be doing it?” asked Twilight, growing weary of this already.

“YIPPEE!” She exclaimed, leaping up into the air with a powerful flap of her wings which sent a few papers flying. She did a full spin in the air before landing comfortably on her haunches. PinkiePie applauded.

“I’d love that more than anything!”

Twilight was taken aback from her incredibly animated response. “Uhm… Ok. Uhm-” She looked away awkwardly and pointed at the bookshelf.

“Can you check the book on everfree forest there? I have a slight hunch…” she said, before returning back to the book that she was reading.

“Anything for you, My-”

“Trixie.”

“Hehe~ Sure, professor!”

“...”

That one she could accept.

“Howdy, bud!”

AppleJack came into the main hall where fluttershy was curled up in a small quivering ball.

“Heard you were needin’ a hug?”

The ball nodded, and AppleJack obliged, sitting back against one of the chairs and embracing Fluttershy fully, who curled up and continued to sob quietly. AppleJack was much, much taller than fluttershy, a whole head taller. Fluttershy looked about the size of a filly compared to her.

“... Twi told me about how you were feelin’ about RainbowDash.” she said sadly. “It’s… well, safe to say it ain’t the best situation now, is it. Not for anypony.”

Fluttershy let out a sad little giggle, shaking her head.

“I w-want to…” she started slowly. “I want to tell her everythings going t-to be fine… B-But I don’t… She looks like Rarity… A-And Rarity was b-being quite mean about R-RainbowDash’s mane…” she mumbled softly.

AppleJack let out a little laugh. “Eyup. She can be a bit of a diva about her mane. It’s her pride and joy, after all.” She said, looking up and around at the room. Fluttershy’s ear twitched. She would never tell AppleJack, but thanks to being part fruit bat, her hearing was greatly enhanced. This means she could hear her heartbeat. And her heartbeat had gotten quicker as soon as she started talking about Rarity. Fluttershy would usually never pursue something like this; she didn’t really feel good about exploiting something she had no control over. However… she had just crossed the huge step of actually telling somepony about her condition. And curiosity was eating away at her…

She wasn’t going to pursue… but she would give it a little push.

“I-It’s… j-just so hard seeing somepony you love acting so… n-not like themselves” she managed to stutter out.

“Eyup… It sure is…” she said sadly. There was a moment of pause, before AppleJack tensed a bit. Fluttershy heard her heart rate begin to rapidly increase. Fluttershy let out a little smile, before it dropped as the anxious pit in her stomach enveloped her whole being. She felt so horrible and guilty. How could she do that!?

“Shoot-” Said AppleJack, laughing at herself a little. “Well, guess the opal’s out the sack now, aint it?” she said, giving a little sigh. Fluttershy looked up at her with wide eyes.

“You… have a thing for… Rarity?”

“Guess you could say that” she said, smiling.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me!”

“Well… I guess because I didn’t really think it was too relevant. You were loosin’ sleep over Dashie. I wasn’t about Rares.”

“How long..?”

“Goin on three years now.” she said, shrugging a little. “But to be honest… I’m not too keen to pursue it. I’m perfectly happy with how things are between us now. No point in riskin’ anything that could cause undue stress on anypony.”

“B-But…” Fluttershy was about to point out the hypocrisy, but applejack put a hoof to her lips.

“Especially not now with this whole disaster goin on.”

Fluttershy buried her head back into her fuzzy chest. She was talking sense.

“I-I won’t tell anypony.”

“Thanks, Fluttershy. I appreciate that.”

The guilty hole in Fluttershy’s stomach was starting to eat away at her. Part of her felt almost obliged to tell AppleJack about her vampirism… She shrank back down. She just couldn’t do it.

It had been several hours of research by this point, and everypony was getting exhausted. RainbowDash had already given up and was idly practising making small objects float with her new magic. Rarity was much the same, working out how to use her new wings. Occasionally the duo would give little tips and suggestions, but it was incredibly awkward to do so.

AppleBloom was asleep in the corner, her horn occasionally sparking with the uncontrolled magic it contained. AppleJack was beside her, gently patting her back in comfort. Fluttershy had rejoined the group too, and was idly colouring a comfort colouring book in the corner.

Only Twilight, Trixie and PinkiePie were actively searching (although Pinkie was mostly just looking through to see if there were cool pictures with nice colours).

It was Twilight who finally got some sort of an answer.

“Aha!” She looked down at the notebook. “I’ve got it! The mirror pool!”

PinkiePie’s ears flattened down. “Oh nOoo… not the mirror pool… That was one of the scariest days of my life! I almost got zapped into oblivion by Twilight!” she said, a little bit of shudder in her voice. Twilight looked a little guilty at this. She did… kind of do that. Anyway-

“Y-Yeah. Anyway… I think it has to do with it! According to this book on the everfree forest, the mirror pool has some sort of connection to a so-called ‘mirror dimension’! It's like a type of pathway between worlds that lies within mirrors. When I travelled to the world that Sunset Shimmer lives in, I used a mirror and travelled through the mirror dimension to get there! And so far it's the closest thing I can think of to this ‘mirror entity’.” She said.

“Well we know where that is! Let's get going!” Said AppleJack. Everypony else nodded in agreement.

AppleJack looked down at the green unicorn beside her and smiled gently.

“Come on now. Time to wake up.”

“Huh… oh…” said AppleBloom, sitting up. She gingerly felt the horn on her head. “So it wasn’t all just a bad dream…”

“I’m afraid not, sugarcube. Now… I need you to head to your lil’ crusader treehouse. Hopefully your friends will know where your body is, and you can try and stay safe there. Okay?”

“Siss… I wanna go with you!” she protested. “I’m not a little filly! I’m… uhm… however old Lyra Heartstrings is!”

“AppleBloom…” AppleJack gave her one of her stares. “Please. I can’t have anythin’ else bad happen to you today, ok? We don’t know what we’re gonna find at that mirror pool. Please.”

Sadly, the unicorn nodded.

“Thanks so much, hun. I’ll walk you there on the way to the forest.” AppleJack gave her a pat on the head.

As everypony prepared to leave, Trixie went up to Twilight. “Well Twilight! This has turned into quite the unexpected collaboration, hasn’t it?” She said, wrapping a wing around Twi and holding her hoof up into the air in front of her, as if they were standing over a huge open landscape and Trixie was declaring it to be hers. “Together we will be UNSTOPPABLE!”

“Trixie,,, I just want to get this over with. We’ll all get back to our own bodies, and then you’ll be on your way.”

Trixie’s eye twitched a little, and her smile dropped. “Oh! I… I see.” She said, quickly stopping the embrace. She stood there awkwardly for a few moments.

“You… Wouldn’t want Trixie around to… help with… anything? I can be very helpful, you see!”

Twilight could feel a small twig in her mind snap. The build up stress and frustration of this day had finally come to a head.

“Trixie.” Twilight turned to face her. “The last two times you’ve come here, you’ve done nothing but cause dismay and destruction. And now you’ve thrown the whole of Equestria into turmoil. To be honest, you’re lucky that you’re in my body, otherwise you would be held in the dungeon. Nopony wants you around.”

The whole room had gone silent, staring at the pair of swapped mares. Trixie felt her heart slowly start to crack. Receiving that devastating of a verbal attack from her own voice and from Twilight was more than she could handle right now. Twilight felt a tiny bit bad but was too worked up to apologise right now.

“... I’ll see you all outside.” she said shortly, and left.

The tension in the room was palpable as Trixie glanced around at the others. Everypony was looking at her with various degrees of sympathy.

“... What are you all looking at? Come on! We have a job t-to do!” Trixie declared, trying her best to maintain composure. Everypony slowly turned away and got back to preparing.

Trixie let out a big sigh, and left the room. Out in the hallway, she slid down against a wall, staring at her strange and unfamiliar hooves.

Even when she was Twilight Sparkle, the princess of friendship…

Nopony wanted her around.

The sound of tears splashing onto the cold hard floor echoed through the corridors.

The mane 6, plus Trixie, were trudging through the everfree forest. PinkiePie was in front, happily bouncing as she went, describing the last time she had been to the mirror pool.

“It was SO COOL! When I came out of the pool it was like BAM! TWO PINKIES! There's usually only ONE! And then we had the amazing idea of making even MORE pinkie pies! And so we had SO MANY PINKIE PIES it was like heaven in Equestria! Twilight DID have to destroy most of them… which was needed! But also quite sad… but it's ok! They’re all still alive in the mirror pool! That's what I like to think anyway!”

Twilight smiled to herself as PinkiePie rambled. She loved the energy that she had in everything that she did. Some may find her annoying, but the constant vibrating bubble of excitement and energy really did do wonders to keep her spirits up. Every now and again, she would glance back at Trixie. She hadn’t said anything since they left the castle, which really wasn’t like her. A guilty twinge set itself comfortably into her stomach. She needed to apologise to her…

Just not now.

Fluttershy and RainbowDash were together at the back, both very awkwardly walking next to each other, avoiding eye contact. Occasionally their eyes would meet, and they would smile awkwardly. Both wanted support and affection from the other, but it just felt wrong.

Rarity was much the same. Occasionally, she would jump up into the air and fly a few metres above the group, letting out a little laugh of joy as she did. RainbowDash and Fluttershy would always look up at her forlornly, both looking at the body they wanted (in different ways of course).

“Aaaaaaand here it is! The mirror pool cave entrance!” Pinkiepie said happily as she bounced up to it, but stopped bouncing a few metres away. She tilted her head in confusion. “Oh! Nevermind! This is some sort of weird force field instead! Teehee!”

“Force field!?”

Twilight had remembered putting a rock over the entrance with the help of big mac, but she hadn’t cast any spells on it!

She quickly pushed past the others and got to the front. The rock was no longer there. Instead, a shimmering blue magical barrier covered the entrance to the cave. Panic began to rise in her as she prodded it with her hoof. It zapped her pretty badly, causing her to cry out in pain

“N-No!” she exclaimed, stumbling back a little.

“What is it, Twi?” asked AppleJack, moving closer to make sure the unicorn didn’t collapse.

“It’s starswirl’s impenetrable barrier…” She said quietly, managing to steady herself. “N-Nopony is getting into that c-cave! T-The only way past is a…” she said, before shutting her eyes in regret.

She looked to Trixie.

“... Trixie.”

The alicorn hadn’t really been listening, but ears perked up a little as she was addressed. “Yes?”

“I need you to teleport past the barrier.” Twilight asked slowly.

Trixie blinked, before a smile formed on her face. A chance to prove herself!

Only problem is she had no idea how to use teleportation magic.

“Of course!” she said, and moved towards the translucent barrier.

“Teleportation spell… GO” she declared, standing proudly.

…

…

“Teleportation spell……….. GO!”

She remained in place.

“Trixie… you don’t know how to teleport, do you?” Said Fluttershy quietly.

“SHHH! This is my process. Teleportation spell… GO!”

Twilight was on the floor, head in hooved, mumbling to herself as Trixie continued to (in vain) teleport through the barrier.

Fluttershy’s eyes were starting to water. She had hoped that everything would be back to normal today. It seemed like that might be a fantasy.

RainbowDash could see how much she was struggling. She couldn’t take it.
“Rarity.” she said quietly. “W-We need to help her.”

“I know…” she said, looking at the quivering pegasus. “But what can we do?”

The pair looked at eachother, and nodded. Slowly, they both sat down next to Fluts and embraced her. Fluttershy started shaking as she began to cry again, but having both of them there seemed to be at least some comfort.

AJ stood next to the suffering Twilight for comfort as Pinkie repeatedly zapped herself trying to get in.

“It was much less tricky the last time I was here…”

Eventually, Twilight stood up.

“O-Okay girls! I know what to do.” she said. “I-It won’t be easy, but there is a way to break the barrier. W-We will need some very hard to find ingredients, though.”

“How hard? I’ve got lots of rock candy!” Piped up Pinkie after her fourteenth time getting zapped.

“Even harder than that.” Twilight replied with an affectionate roll of her eyes.

“We will need four different things to cast the spell correctly…”

“One: Some infernal metal from the depths of Tartarus”.

“Two: Never melt ice from the mountaintop glaciers of Yak-Yakistan”

“Three: A 7 carat ruby from the dragonlands”

“Four: A drop of alicorn blood.”

There was a stunned silence as Twilight finished.

“Oh, so just a simple trip to the farmers market then?” Said Rainbowdash, who started laughing in tired disbelief.

“My… This IS a monumental shopping list…” Muttered Rarity.

“How in the hay are we meant to get all of that?” asked AppleJack. She didn’t even know where they would begin to find that sorta stuff.

“Well…” Twilight gave a little sigh. “We already have the blood of an alicorn. Well, I mean, we can GET the blood of an alicorn.”

“Excuse me! This is MY blood! You can’t have it!” Trixie protested.

“Actually, it's MY blood. You’re just borrowing it.” Twilight snapped back, which shut Trixie up pretty quick.
“Anyway… I know the way to Tartarus. I can head there. But I’ll need powerful magic to get in… and somepony to distract cerberus…” she said, looking at Trixie and Pinkie Pie.

“I’m the pony for that! I’m so distracted, you didn’t even realise I stole AppleJack’s hat four minutes ago!” she said, frisbeeing the hat back onto AppleJack’s head perfectly. She was right. Nobody had noticed.

Trixie looked at Twilight looking at her. She blinked. She looked behind her. Who did she-

OH!

Her head turned back round, and she was smirking again. Twilight groaned internally.

“So what you’re saying is… we get to go on a road trip… Together?”

“... Yes.” Twilight said. “B-But I want to make it clear that-”

“YIPEE!!!!!!!!!!” Trixie took off into the sky again, spinning around. PinkiePie cheered as well, unsure why this was so momentous but hey! Smiles go for miles!

Twilight facehoofed. She would deal with that later.

“A-Anyway… For YakYakistan, we would need some ponies to head up to the peaks of the mountains to gather some of the ice. The terrain means that it would be best for Pegasi to go… not to mention the dangerous creatures that a certain somepony I know would be perfect to handle” she said, looking over at Fluttershy and Rarity.

“O-Oh.” Said Rarity, looking at her wings. “I suppose that makes sense…”

“Y-Yes, I’d be… able to do that.” she said, looking at Rarity. In the body of her girlfriend. “I-I’m sure we’ll… uhm…” She looked away awkwardly.

RainbowDash’s uneasy feeling in her stomach doubled.

“Which leaves the Ruby…” Finished Twilight. “Usually, I’d suggest the dragon lands obviously, but I don’t know that it would be the best Idea to go to, seeing as there is a chance that Ponies may have swapped with Dragons. And since Spike is off…” she looked into the camera. “Somewhere…” she looked back at the ponies. “I think we need to work out a plan B…”

“... I know where we can get one.” Rarity piped up.

“R-Really?” Said Twilight in surprise.

“Yes. In my vault at the Manehattan central bank. I had been saving it for a big piece but….” she looked away forlornly. “I SUPPOSE that this is important enough for me to part with it.”

“Perfect! Well then you- Well… not you. R-RainbowDash and AppleJack can head there!”

RainbowDash nodded glumly, with AppleJack just staring for a few moments, thoughts of her affection for the unicorn body’s usual occupant running rampant. “Eyup…”

“Uhm… I guess I can do that.” said RainbowDash, looking over at Fluttershy sadly.

“O-Okay. T-Thats settled then.” Twilight stood up, and gave a little recap.

“So Me, Trixie and Pinkie will head to Tartarus. RainbowDash and AppleJack will head to Manehatten to get the ruby out of the vault. And Fluttershy and Rarity will head up north to YakYakistan to retrieve some of the ice there.”

Everypony nodded.

“T-This isn’t going to be easy. But I know we can do it. Together. And seeing the barrier confirms to me that It has to be something to do with the mirror pool.”

They had their goal.

They had their quest.

They had their teams.

What could possibly go wrong?

Author's Note

Hi all! Thanks so much for reading!

I appreciate that everything is. A little confusing with who's in who's body and all of that atm akjsdbfasgfd its made extra confusing by how they are all in the same place, all talking to each other at the same time.

But! This is the reason i'm splitting everyone off into little groups to help keep cohesion!

Let me know what you thought in the comments!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That time Fluttershy and Rarity climbed a mountain

⛰️ Chapter 4 ⛰️

That time Fluttershy and Rarity climbed a mountain

CURRENT STATUS

Twilight inhabits Trixie

Trixie inhabits Twilight

Rainbow Dash inhabits Rarity

Rarity inhabits Rainbow Dash

PinkiePie inhabits PinkiePie

TW: Minor Injury detail + Blood

The first leg of Fluttershy and Rarity’s journey had been without much conversation, to say the least. Despite Rarity promising that she was getting the hand of ‘this whole flying buisness after 2 days in Rainbow Dash’s body, Fluttershy insisted that they just walk. This was partially to avoid any crashes, and partly because Fluttershy had been so anxious that she was having trouble getting her wings to unlock from their clamped position on the side of her body. This wasn’t something she was too ready to admit to rarity.

As warned by Twilight, they had done their best to avoid contact with anypony, mostly taking the backroads or even going through the forests sometimes. The few ponies they had spoken to had mostly asked them questions of ‘when is this all going to get fixed’ and 'where is Twilight?” and “Have you seen my foal?”. All they could do was remind ponies not to look into mirrors and that everything was going to be sorted out soon.

Rarity had tried to strike up conversation a couple of times but Fluttershy had answered pretty shortly for most of the attempts, always avoiding eye contact. Rarity couldn’t blame her.

It was after their third long day on the road that we find our duo now, setting up a small camp for the night.

The camp was a very small cave on the side of a mountain pass. It was a well used area, with the charcoal of previous traveller’s campfires piled up in the middle of a few battered logs that could be leant against.

Fluttershy had suddenly volunteered to find some more firewood with some urgency in her voice, which left Rarity with the usually trivial but currently monumental task of actually starting a fire. She didn’t assume anything of Fluttershy; she knew there would be alot on her mind right now.

“Come on now… you can do it…” she whispered as she rotated the stick with her hooves, partially at the small wisps of smoke that were starting to form and partially and partially at herself. She was still a little unsteady with her blue pegasus hooves, which caused the stick to fumble out of her hooves once again. “DAMN IT!” She cried out in frustration, throwing the stick against the cave wall, only for it to fly back and hit her on the forehead. Ow.

She sat down grumpily, forelegs crossed, and stared at the unlit campfire as if staring at it really intensely would cause it to spontaneously combust.

Of course, if she still had access to her magic, she would be able to simply cast a basic sparking spell and effortlessly light the campfire in front of her. As she thought of it, her wings shuffled uncomfortably on her back. Craning her neck round, she fully stretched out her left wing, carefully brushing through the feathers with a hoof. Each one was unique and beautiful, all moulding together to create the elegant wing that supported the pegasi when she flew. Passing the hoof through was a strange sensation akin to having somepony stroke your head, which each individual feather touched sending a little quiver down the bones in the wings and straight to Rarity’s spine. She smiled a little. She couldn’t deny that her wings were magnificent. But even as she fawned a little over the wings, the messy outcrop of mane flopped down and covered her vision.

“Eeaugh…” she grumbled, moving it out of the way. Even after just two days of travelling, it was once again a greasy mess. She had been forced to use all of her special dry shampoo the day before just to make it look somewhat presentable, and now she was left with just a brush. She grabbed it out of her little daybag, and started to brush the birds nest that rested atop her hornless head. The mane hair kept on getting caught in knots, causing it to tug quite badly, and the lack of levitation magic meant she was having to bend back at awkward angles. She gave up on the mane for now, and started on the tail. Her tail was even worse. Whenever Rarity would walk, her mane would always be held high and proud behind her. Rainbow Dash on the other hand seemed to just let it drag along the floor, leaving it coated in mud and dirt and sticks and leaves and all sorts of nasties. Her brief shower had helped a little, but it still felt like dragging an unwashed towel behind you as you walked. She gave a grumble as she heard the gently hoofsteps of Fluttershy’s return.

The fox stood at the water's edge, slowly drinking up the clean water from the small forest stream. It stood there in near perfect tranquillity, only stopping as it heard a small rustle coming from the woods around it. Its ear swivelled, and looked up in that direction. It wasn’t able to see anything. And that's because the creature that had made the noise was now hovering directly behind it.

The fox didn’t have time to react as the creature descended on it, pinning it down with unnatural strength. The fox started screeching, struggling and wriggling, managing to slash a few times at the limbs of the creature, but once it looked up and was caught in its gaze, the fox fell silent, and could do nothing but stare. The gently glowing red eyes looked sad, tears pooling at the corners as the fanged creature opened its jaws.

“I-I’m sorry…”

Fluttershy, in full batpony form, bit down harshly into the fox’s neck with her razor sharp fangs. The fox let out another cry and started to thrash again but it was quickly neutralised by whatever toxin was in Fluttershy’s saliva, causing the fox to relax its body and for the blood to flow.

Fluttershy drank with eyes squeezed shut as tight as they would go. She hated this so much. Just as she had reached an acceptable level, she had to use all of her willpower to release the creature, throwing her head back into the air and gulping down the remains of her ‘meal’, tears flowing down her cheeks. The fox lay there, eyes wide, but still breathing. Fluttershy quickly applied a bandage to the puncture wounds, and left the fox where it lay as she stumbled towards the water. She was coughing, flecks of blood coming out and covering the rocks by the stream. Gently, she put her own head down to the very same spot the fox had been drinking from, washing the taste out of her tongue as well as cleaning the blood away from the corners. The water now in her system, she fell over onto her side, breathing heavily as her form shrank. Her leathery wings grew feathers once more, her rough pointed ears became ponylike again, and the colour of her fur became more vibrant. She was a pegasus once more.

Fluttershy refused to kill. She knew that in nature there would be no life without death, and that predators hunting prey was an uncontrollable reality. But that was nature. Not whatever she was.

She looked up at the fox where she lay, whose chest was still gently rising and falling. It would be ok. It had to be. She had never lost enough control to fully drain a creature before, but this was probably her closest call.

She had started to get the horrible empty feeling inside yesterday as they were travelling, and had managed to ignore it. But today, she had spent the entirety of the afternoon thinking about the neck of a mare she had seen in one of the villages they had passed. Usually, it would take a couple of weeks before she needed to feed when paired with Zekora’s potion. But she was all out, and Zekora had been unnervingly absent from her home in the everfree forest when they had gone for a quick visit before departing.

Part of her wanted to warn Rarity, but a much louder anxious part of her was just telling her that if she admitted it, everypony would hate and shun her. So it was easier to lie.

It always seemed easier to lie.

After a few moments of lying still, the pegasus rose to her hooves, strangely feeling weaker. It was a strange paradox, as the more starved vampire gets, the more she grows stronger. She quickly gathered up some firewood, and moved back towards the camp.

Oh how little she wished to go back to the camp right now. Because that's where Rarity was.

In the body of her girlfriend.

Ugh.

This sucked.

“Evening, my darling…” she said, grunting a little as she continued to try and get her rainbow tail in some sort of straight line. Fluttershy gave a mumbled greeting, dumping down the firewood next to the not lit fire.

“Uhm… did you manage to start the fire?” She said quietly. Rarity looked up at her with an unamused expression.

“Oh, uhm… sorry.” She said, “D-Do you mind if I have a go?”

“Of course.” She said, passing over the small fire starting kit they had.

It took a little while, but Fluttershy eventually got the fire started. Rarity smiled at her with genuine gratitude.

“Thank you so much!” She said, shuffling over and laying down next to the fire. “It’s been SUCH a long day. I would have hated to sleep in the cold.”

Fluttershy smiled and looked away shyly. It was good to feel needed. After a few moments of gathering together some of the berries and oats she had brought for food, she sat down opposite her, idly munching as the fire started to take hold and really start crackling.

Rarity continued to brush. “Honestly… it’s like she never even tries to stay clean!” She said, laughing a little in exasperation.

“She is a bit messy…” Fluttershy admitted, looking over the fire at Rarity. Her heart was filled with that sense of longing again, inflamed by how close her desire seemed to be. She was almost just sitting across the fire pit from her. But almost wasn’t enough. It wasn’t her.

On her worst days, even before they were dating, Rainbow Dash would always be there by her side. Despite her cockyness and incessant need to always be the quickest and the best, she always had time to slow down for Fluttershy. And since they had been dating, there was no more comforting feeling than waking up from a nightmare to see Rainbow Dash there, ready to squeeze her at a moment's notice.

Fluttershy could never get over how… cool she was. Ever since she was a filly, she had always been in quiet awe of her speed, and she had obsessed for hours over her beautiful multi colored mane. She had even gone through a phase of trying to dye her mane like hers (it didn’t go well and required a lot time and patience to get rid of. Why do you think she had to use tail extensions sometimes?). Rainbow Dash hadn’t known how to respond most of the time, so just thanked her and hugged her. This was all that Fluttershy wanted.

And on those nights where her brain was loud, she still couldn’t believe that the mare she had fawned over her whole life was the one’s eyes she would find herself getting lost in when she awoke.

The mare who promised she would never leave.

Which made it all the more painful that those same eyes that looked up at her now had somepony else behind them.

Fluttershy could fear herself start to spiral, so she turned around and prepared to lie down. She didn’t want to get deep with Rarity. In any other circumstance she would love to. But not today. Not whilst she-

“Honestly…” Rarity continued. “With the amount of dirt in this mane I don’t understand how she can even fly around! She doesn’t do anything to take care of her appearance, does she? Always so concerned with going fast and breaking things instead of slowing down and appreciating the little things…” she let out a small grunt of frustration as she tugged on a particularly Nasty knot.

“I can’t say I understand what you see in her, Fluttershy.”

Rarity had just been speaking her mind in an exhausted stream of frustrated consciousness, and hadn’t even realised that she’d said what she had just said.

She was so focused on brushing that she hadn’t seen Fluttershy stop moving. Or seeing her stand up. Or notice until it was far too late that she was standing right beside her, her eyes almost flashing red with rage.

“Well maybe it’s not something you could ever understand.” She hissed. Rarity was taken aback, gears clicking into place as she realised what had slipped out.

“F-Fluttershy, I-“

“Maybe you could never understand what it’s like to be afraid of every little creak of the floorboards. Every pitter patter of rain on the window. Every passing glance from anypony. To only be able to have normal conversations with animals. Too anxious to speak up.” She began, getting closer and closer to Rarity, who had shrunk back.

“And then for somepony who’s brave and fearless and fast and cool to swoop in and convince you that everything’s going to be ok. Who will protect you and keep you safe. W-Who inspires you to be proud of yourself. W-Who helps you express yourself and be who you want to be. Who you can in turn motivate to get even bigger and brighter and stronger and faster…” She continued, her already tearful eyes starting to overwhelm her.

“Somepony who will always be by your side, no matter how much of a monster you are.”

She didn’t mean to say that last part. Rarity looked terrified, eyes wide with shock.

Rarity, with the face of Rainbow Dash. Looking terrified.

Fluttershy fell backwards into a sitting position. The face looking back at her had floored her. She found her anger flipping inwards, becoming a destructive force of self immolating despair. She managed to get one more tiny squeak of a sentence out.

“S-Somepony who promised they’d never leave me.”

Fluttershy curled herself into a tiny ball, her wings spreading out to cover herself as a safety blanket. Her wings compressed her body as much as it could to help with the breakdown, but no amount of self-inflicted hugs could save her from this one.

The cave was silent, with only the gently crackling of the fire and stuttering breaths of a stunned Rarity.

“Fluttershy…” she mumbled, at a complete loss for words. She sat there beside her for a few minutes, letting her cry, staring out of the cave entrance. She had definitely gone too far.

Rarity knew WHY she had said it. She was exhausted after a long day in the wrong body, and Rainbow Dash’s mane was a disaster zone in itself most days. It was the result of all of the frustration and uncertainty of the last few days… sprinkled with a tiny crumb of Rarity's true feelings. She loved Rainbow Dash, of course. She was a loyal and strong friend, who would help Rarity with anything no matter what (although she still flexed her right to complain about it) and no matter how much they would bicker, it would never come from a place of hatred. But she did have a hard time seeing why anypony would be interested in such a pony as her romantically.

Until today.

She scratched the floor a bit. She could just wait until tomorrow to talk to her.

Stalling was only going to make things worse.

“F-Fluttershy. I’m going to place my hoof on your back, okay?” She said, looking down at the quivering mess. The mess didn’t respond; it just carried on sobbing. Taking this as a yes, Rarity carefully placed the hoof on her back, and gently stroked her fur.

“I am…” she started, pausing a bit to take a deep breath. “I must admit… I personally do not find Rainbowdash to be that… desirable… however… I now understand why she means so much to you.” She said slowly and softly. Fluttershy’s sobs slowed down, signalling that she was listening.

“… I am so sorry that I said those things. You are one of my best friends.I have no right to say those kinds of things about the Pony you love. And dare I say… you’ve helped me understand.” She said, letting out a little chuckle. “For Somepony of your temperament… Rainbow Dash is the perfect match for you. I’m sorry that I was too blinded by my own vanity to see that.”

Fluttershy looked a lot calmer now, but she stayed in her little safety ball for the time being. She seemed to enjoy the gently stroking on the back… so much so that she eventually spoke.

“W… Would I be able to get a hug please, Rarity?”

Rarity had been zoned out, but upon hearing the request she smiled softly.

“Of course.”

She slid down beside her, and wrapped her forelegs around fluttershy. Getting an idea from when she had seen Rainbow Dash use her wings before, she spread them and wrapped around Fluts too, creating a sort of outer shell for her. Fluttershy mumbled a little thanks.

“I may not be Rainbow Dash, but I can promise that I’m not going anywhere. I would do anything for you.”

She paused, smiling a tiny bit.

“Except kiss you. You can save that for her.”

Fluttershy laughed a little, nodding her head.

“… T-thank you…” she said softly. “I-I’m sorry for bellowing at you…”

“Don’t worry about it, darling. It's been a bad couple of days.”

“It… sure has…” she said, her breathing quickly growing softer as she passed into the realm of sleep.

Rarity smiled weakly. That poor girl…

She never ceased to amaze her.

It had been another relatively uneventful day of travelling for the most part, but the atmosphere between them was a lot lighter. The pair had eventually reached the Crystal Empire, where they had found the streets mostly deserted. Checking in with the castle, they found that Cadence had been unlucky enough to have been caught by the curse. A nervous cowpony from Appleoosa was now the princess of love and seemed to be having trouble with all of the feelings that they were sensing from the ponies around them. Shining Armour had picked up the mantle of temporary leader, and was doing a decent job rationing out supplies and keeping everypony calm. After a quick restock of supplies and getting some winter coats (Which Rarity spent HOURS on, since she now had to account for having wings), the pair had set off on their journey to the northern border of the crystal empire.

“W-What if we run into any Yaks? They aren’t the friendliest of creatures…” asked Fluttershy worriedly, looking up at the huge mountain range in front of the pair of them. They had met the Yak’s briefly before, but it was mainly PinkiePie’s genius intervention that saved them from all out war.

“Don’t be ridiculous, darling!” Rarity reassured her. “First of all, they barely ever leave their village! Secondly, we have something they don’t!”

“... anxiety?”

“No, Fluttershy… WINGS!” she said, spreading out her wings proudly. She had gotten much more used to them.

“Oh… uhm… yes. Wings.” She said, glancing back at her own pair. She spread them out and flapped them a little too. She was glad that they were functional again; her fear levels were directly tied to wing usefulness levels.

“Okay… Two Mares versus a mountain… One nervous, one in the wrong body…” declared Rarity. “How hard can it be?”

“D-Do you want an answer to that question?” groaned Fluttershy as the pair set up the mountain.

The first section of the mountain pass was relatively stable, with only a few tricky spots that required their wings. The winds had started to pick up, which had knocked over Fluttershy a few times. Rarity was always there to help her up.

Eventually the pair got to a particularly tricky crossing; where there had previously been a rope bridge over a large ravine was now a few loose bits of rope attached to wooden sticks, waving in the breeze.

“Okay… The wind seems especially strong here. Think we can manage it?” Asked Rarity, glancing back at Fluttershy. She peered over the edge… it was pretty deep.

“J-Just a hop, skip and a jump, right?” she said, giving a little smile. This smile was quickly overshadowed, however, by the actual shadow that blocked out the sun. Both ponies turned to stare up at the huge yak behind them, who was grinning wide.

“Well well well… What have we got here?” the Yak said in an accent that definitely wasn’t a native YakYakistan one. Behind him, two earth ponies came round, also sneering. Rarity’s eyebrow furrowed in recognition. The dark glasses on one and fedora on the other…

Dr Caballeron’s henchponies!
If these were his henchponies, then would have to mean…

“Dr Caballeron!” Growled Rarity. “I see you’ve become a victim of this Equestria wide curse too, then?”

“I certainly have! And look at how much more POWERFUL I have become! There is no Daring Do to save you this time, elements of harmony!” The Pony turned Yak chuckled. “Now I’d think it would be wise for you to hand over all of your possessions and come with us! Just THINK of the ransom money!”

Fluttershy’s wings were firmly clamped on her sides now, her back hoof slipping as she went back, nearly sending her over the edge. “Just because you’re a little larger now doesn’t mean that you’re any less destructible!” Rarity declared, arching her back a little, wings spread wide in a show of intimidation. Fluttershy winced as she saw Rarity’s expression.

Rainbow Dash would have been able to dispatch these villains without a second thought. But Rarity…

“Heh… I am no fool, RainbowWing… I know how easily you would be able to defeat me… which is why I believe it would be better if you weren’t you”

He stomped his oversized hoof on the floor, and without a moment's notice, his henchman had whipped out-

Mirrors.

It was a chaotic moment.

Rarity had screamed, immediately covering her eyes.

Dr Caballeron had charged forward, seemingly looking to push Rarity off the cliff edge.

Fluttershy was staring directly at the mirrors. The lack of reflection stared back. Almost in slow motion, her eyes darted to Rarity, about to get hit by the huge creature.

The sight of the blue pegasus in danger lit something in Fluttershy, and before she could even realise what she was doing, she had launched herself towards Rarity with speed that she didn’t know she had. The impact of her light body was just enough to push her out of the way. The yak didn’t have much control over his body, and was sent skidding off the edge of the ravine, only managing to stop himself falling off by grabbing onto a small outcropping of rock (that quickly began to break under the weight on the yak).

“A-Are you still-” Fluttershy started but was cut off by Rarity’s reply.

“Y-Yes! I’m still Rarity!” she said, still not opening her eyes.

Fluttershy looked up at the two henchponies, who seemed to be paralysed through indecision. They would also soon be paralysed by the devilish glare that Fluttershy gave them as she marched up to them, and took their mirrors, tossing them into the ravine.

“Come on.” She hissed. “L-Lets save your boss.”

Rarity heard the mirrors smashing in the echoing depths of the icy ravine, and opened her eyes to see the two henchponies trying to drag up the huge yak who was quivering on the edge of oblivion. Fluttershy was there, eye twitching and panting a little, trying to get her wings to move properly. But she couldn’t.

“R-Rain.. b-bow…” she started, looking at Rarity. That wasn’t her.

But she still knew she could do it.

“Y-You need to save him!”

“Why? H-He tried to kill me!” Rarity protested.

“B-Because n-no matter how much I hate him, that's not his body! T-That's someyak with a family! I-Its not fair on him i-if he doesn’t have a body to go back to!”

Rarity looked between Fluttershy and the Yak, before nodding with determination. “Right.”

She spread her wings, and flapped down to the Yaks back legs and started pushing. The crosswinds were harsh, but she was just about able to stay steady. There was a lack of coordination between the henchpoines and Rarity. Flutteshy waited for somepony to take charge and help coordinate.

Oh wait she was the only one there.

“O-Okay! Uhm… Push on the count of three! One… Two… Three!”

Rarity and the henchpoines helped along, and between them, the three were able to get Dr Caballeron back onto stable ground.

He lay there on his yak back, staring up at the ceiling, painting.

Fluttershy hugged Rarity tight as she resurfaced. “T-That was amazing!”

“It rather was, wasn’t it? I’m surprised I actually managed that without dropping him down into the ravine…” she said, flexing her forleg in surprise.

“Why…”

The pair of pegasi looked over at the rescued yak. “Why did you save me?”

“Oh darling… We didn’t save you.” Rarity said smugly. “We saved whoever’s body that is. And rest assured…”

She scooped up fluttershy by the waist (which made her blush a tiny bit) and flapped up into the air, managing to stay afloat despite the wind.

“When this is all sorted, the girls and I will be SURE to track you down and get you all thrown in the deepest dungeon in canterlot!”

“Y-Yeah!! W-With minimal sunlight!” chimed in Fluttershy.

You go girl.

They left the dumbfounded villains on their side of the ravine, and landed safely on the other side.

Fluttershy smiled wide, and moved on for a few more hoofsteps before collapsing in a pile of snow. That had been enough adrenaline for a whole YEAR!

“You ok?” Rarity gave her a nudge with a hoof.

“I’m fine! I will be ok, I-I mean. I just need a minute… or ten…”

“You deserve it! I’ve never seen you so brave before! Running straight into those mirrors… Were you not worried that you would get sent halfway around the world?”

Flutteshy stayed silent for a few moments. She could just tell her…

“N-No. I knew I’d be ok. I’ve gotten quite good at running with my eyes shut.”

This wasn’t a lie. She was good at running with her eyes shut.

“You never cease to amaze me, Fluttershy! Come on! We aren’t too far away from the peaks!”

Nice save.

It took them a couple more hours to reach the desired peak, but once they got there, they had a chance to have a proper rest. The landscape around them was dramatic and fierce with jagged rocks spiking up everywhere, some torchlight from various Yak tribes glowing up through the now gently falling snow. It was a wonderful sight.

But Fluttershy had the inclination in the back of her head that things could, and would, start going wrong pretty quickly as she pointed out the huge clouds in the distance which were slowly but surely making their way towards them.
“T-That looks like a Blizzard… not even the Wonderbolts could control that monster.” she whimpered.

“Well we better get this ice quick then!” Replied Rarity, and after a few more minutes journey they were at the glacier.

“How did Twilight say we get the ice?” Asked Rarity, searching through her little pack to try and rediscover the instructions.

“Uhm… I think she said just to… bash it with a rock.”

“That she did.”

Both stood there awkwardly, with Fluttershy eventually looking at Rarity.

“You’re… the strong one now, remember?”

“OH! Oh yes, sorry.”

Rarity found a sizable rock, and started bashing down at the glacier in a circle. With time and effort, she managed to cut out a sizable chunk of the ice. The ice shimmered with a magical quality as she held it up to the obscured sunlight. There was frosty vapour coming from it, but she could tell that it wasn’t melting.

“Aaand that's us done!” Said Rarity with joy. She carefully put the ice in the special container they had brought (it was just tupperware from Sugarcube Corner), and looked to Fluttershy. “Well! What's the plan now! Back to ponyville?”

“Uhm…” Fluttershy was staring just above her, and pointed with a hoof.

“We should probably get away from that.”

Rarity turned to see the blizzard clouds were approaching FAR quicker than expected.

“Yes, yes that seems like a good idea.” She said, and the pair hurriedly started running!

Doing their best not to slip on the ice, they journeyed down the mountain, the snowfall getting greater with every passing moment.

Soon, visibility was starting to rapidly deteriorate, but not before Fluttershy’s enhanced ears picked something up.

The sound of a door opening and shutting in the wind.

“W-WAIT!” She called through the snow, standing on Rarity’s tail to stop her from moving. “T-Theres some sort of building nearby!”

“How can you tell? I can barely see my own hoof!”

“I-I just can! Come with m-me!”

Fluttershy’s ears swivelled as she guided Rarity along, being careful not to accidentally send them off any cliff edges. Eventually she found it, the stone building coming into view. It looked like some sort of abandoned fort, with a large oak door that was almost coming off its hinges. It didn’t seem to offer too much protection from the elements, but it would have to be enough.

The pair entered, and together managed to slam the door shut behind them, blocking it with a small dresser.

“T-There! A basement hatch!” Rarity spotted, and the two descended down into the basement.

“D-Do you…”

“Yes yes, I’ve got one here!”

Rarity pulled out the lantern, and managed to light it. It was a simple magic light with an internal crystal to power it.

It was a small room, with four basic beds that were probably once upon a time used for whoever was guarding this place. There were small chests at the base of each bed, and a small door to the right of the room that Rarity could only assume was the bathroom.

“We should be safe here until the blizzard passes!” she said with relief and shuffled over to one of the old beds.

“I can’t imagine these will be too comfortable, but it's al… ways…” she had started her sentence, and then lay on one of the beds, passing out from exhaustion almost immediately.

Fluttershy smiled weakly at seeing her splat onto that bed like a tomato dropped from a four story building.

With a stretch, she looked at the door. She should probably check what's in there right?

As she approached the door, her tail twitched a little in pride. She had done it!

That was one item down, two more to go!

She wondered how the others were getting on with their quests…

Author's Note

Thanks for reading!

Super enjoyed writing this one! I love Flutterbat so so much, and I loved writing the fluttershy angst :)

I needed some sort of obstacle… so who else but everypony’s favourite C list horse character!! Daring Do’s enemy, Dr Cabaleron! What a guy

Next chapter will be AppleJack and RainbowDash (In Rarity’s Body) will go to withdraw the gemstone from Rarity’s vault! I’m sure it will go smoothly and Applejack won’t have to punch anypony.

I’m sure.

Let me know what you thought!

That time Twilight and the girls went to hell

🔥Chapter 6🔥

That time Twilight and the girls went to hell

CURRENT STATUS

Twilight inhabits Trixie

Trixie inhabits Twilight

Rainbow Dash inhabits Rarity

Rarity inhabits Rainbow Dash

AppleJack inhabits Fluttershy

Fluttershy inhabits AppleJack

PinkiePie inhabits PinkiePie

TW: INJURY DETAIL

“AUGH! Wh… FUCK! NO! SHIT! DARN IT!!”

AppleJack was on the floor, having just sworn to herself in a voice that definitely wasn’t her own.

She had realised what was about to happen just as her brain registered that she was looking at her reflection, and before she had a chance to stop it, she had already been violently flung out of her body and into somepony else. But who?

She felt… tiny.

Slowly opening her eyes, she got quite a surprise at seeing who’s hooves she had. The skinny yellow legs matched with the huge swoosh of pink hair that nestled on the floor beside made it pretty obvious.

“Hello…”

The soft, quiet voice confirmed it.

She was Fluttershy.

She gave a tiny little sigh of relief (far tinier than she had intended). Her main fear was that somepony untrustworthy would be left in her body, but she at least knew it was in safe hooves with Fluttershy. But she didn’t have time to worry about her right now… she needed to worry about herself.

Carefully rising to a standing position, the main thing that struck her was how small she felt. Sure, Fluttershy had long legs, but her frame was miniscule compared to her usual body. The last time she could remember feeling like this was when she was a tiny little filly, even younger than Apple Bloom. It felt incredibly disconcerting, and the earth pony didn’t like it one bit. There was also the strange feeling of having extra limbs. She glanced back at her body to see her wings, neatly placed either side of her. She tested them out, figuring out how to extend them. They were so delicate that AppleJack felt that if she moved them too fast they would break like a twig.

Delicate.

That was the word that hung around in AppleJack’s mind like a gnat. She had spent most of her life being the strong and stable one, always there to hold up others on her mighty back.

What was she now?

“Fluttershy? Darling, are you alright in there?” came the voice of Rainbow Dash from the next room. AppleJack was momentarily confused, before realising who it actually was.

Fuck.

Rarity.

She pushed all of those thoughts to the back of her brain.

“Uhh… Nnope.” She replied, looking to the door that the voice emanated from. She took a deep breath that somehow didn’t seem to get enough oxygen into her lungs. Very carefully, she opened the door to greet the blue pegasus that she knew was waiting.

Rarity’s eyes narrowed. The way that ‘Fluttershy’ had entered was certainly not like her usual self. The yellow pegasus seemed to be looking around the room intently, her eyes finally settling ok Rarity. She gave a small, sad smile.

‘Heya… Rarity.” She said, doing a small nod of her head which inadvertently made her mane flop over her eyes. She pushed it out of the way with some annoyance.

Rarity tilted her head. How did she know that she was Rarity and not RainbowDash?

“Uhm, I ain’t Fluttershy anymore, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She said, the slight southern twang of her accent filtering through Fluttershy’s soft voice.

Rarity’s eyes widened. There was a tiny pool of ponies who knew about their specific swap, and an even tinier pool of one who had that accent.

Well not really a pool.

A puddle.

“AppleJack!?”

“Eyyup.” She said awkwardly, smiling weakly.

Rarity approached her for a hug, but paused, tilting her head. Even though she had hugged Fluttershy multiple times in this body, it still felt… odd. AppleJack sighed in an affectionate way as she saw Rarity quibble.

“A hug wouldn’t be too bad right now, Rares.”

Rarity smiled back at her, and embraced her. It was awkward at first, but as she felt AppleJack start to shake a little, she unfurled her wings and used them to wrap AppleJack in a feathery cocoon. AppleJack appreciated this.

“W-What happened when you looked in a mirror? I mean, what was happening?” Asked Rarity quietly.

“It wasn’t a mirror. It was your gemstone! We may have had to rob a bank.” She said, a little bit of pride in her voice (which shrank away as she admitted the felony). Rarity let out a short laugh, before realising she wasn’t joking.

“Oh! My… RainbowDash’s idea, I presume?”

“Nope. Maud was there. It’s a long story…” she said.

The image of the specially made hat was bouncing around in her mind. Should she ask about it?

Nnnnot now. Maybe later when she was in a more stable place.

“I feel so… weak.” She mumbled out. “How am I supposed to keep everypony safe when I feel like I couldn’t even snap a twig?”

Rarity let out a little sigh, as she looked up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what to even say. Fluttershy was strong in her own ways, but not in a way comparable to AppleJack.

“You are… smaller than you were before.” She said with a little laugh. “But remember, no matter if you’re as powerful as an ox or as weak as a flea, you’re still you. The strongest, bravest and most honest pony that I’ve ever met.” She said softly.

AppleJack could feel her eyes welling up with… tears!?

AppleJack couldn’t remember the last time she cried. She mostly kept it buried deep down, getting rid of her negative emotions by breaking things in the woods when everypony else was sleeping. Maybe being Fluttershy had an inbuilt tear response she wasn’t aware of.

“T… Thanks, sugarcube.” She managed to get out as she felt the tears start to leave her eyes, and found herself placing her face into Rarity’s temporarily blue neck.

Rarity froze for a moment, seeming to consider something. She let out a happy little sigh.

“Anytime, My Beloved.”

AppleJack shuddered. And it wasn’t because of the cold.

As she lay there in a strange slightly sweaty smelling embrace of RainbowDash’s body, she noticed something a little odd as she swallowed.

“Since when did Fluttershy have such pointed teeth?”

RainbowDash stood there, stunned as she stared at Fluttershy. The shy pegasus, who was now in the body of the hulking giant of a horse, had just informed her, her girlfriend, that she was a vampire.

“You’re a WHAT!?”

Fluttershy immediately broke down again, falling into a lying position and placing the hat over her face, squeezing it in tight. She moved her back in a weird way before another loud sob came out from the hat. Rainbow Dash could only assume that she was trying to cover herself with her wings. She didn’t have wings.

RainbowDash groaned at herself internally. She knew exactly how Fluttershy’s brain worked, and such sudden and aggressive confusion at something she had said would wreck her even at the best of times. These were not the best of times.

“I-I mean… I… W-What do you mean?” She said, moving down next to her and placing a hoof on her back.

“I-I’m a… m-monster…” she whimpered. “A horrible, dangerous, blood sucking m-monster. A-And n-now AppleJack… s-she’s going to hurt somepony… and it’s all my fault…”

RainbowDash’s ears flattened back. She was being serious. Fluttershy wasn’t good at lying; this was her at her most truthful.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked very softly, managing to mask the slight hurt in her voice.

“You’d… y-you’d leave… e-everypony would leave and I-I’d be left all alone a-again.”

“Fluttershy.” She said, very sternly. “You look at me. Right now. In the eyes.”

“I don’t… want to.” She whispered, but Rainbow Dash put her hoof down.

“I don’t care. Look at me.”

Shaking like a leaf, Fluttershy tipped the hat up to look at the face of Rarity. She had to remind herself that somepony else was behind those eyes.

“You are not a monster. You are Fluttershy. The prettiest mare in all of Equestria. And no matter what, I’m not going anywhere.”

Fluttershy couldn’t look away, her heart racing as she could almost hear the true voice of RainbowDash saying those words.

She crumpled.

Tears flowing, she gently embraced RainbowDash, crying into her sweet smelling mane that didn’t belong to her.

“T-Thank you… I’ve… m-missed you…” she whimpered. She managed to smile a bit. The comforting warmth of RainbowDash’s presence was starting to spread through her.

“And as for you being… well, a vampire…” she said, and smirked a bit. “That’s so cool… you’re like, an amazing gothic creature of the night!” She said, genuine excitement in her voice. She grinned a little and moved up to her ear and whispered.

“Does that mean you’ll bite me if I ask you to?”

Fluttershy shook her head, looking at her.

“Uhm… I’d rather if you didn’t j-joke… about that if that’s ok.”

“Sure.” Replied Rainbow with a supportive smile, immediately moving away. “May I kiss you on the cheek?”

Fluttershy considered for a moment… Rarity did this often.

“Yes please. B-But just the cheek. It would feel… e-even more wrong.” She said, feeling her strange new mane on her neck.

“Got it.” She said, giving her a brief peck. Even in the wrong bodies, Fluttershy got a little shiver. She loved her girlfriend.

…

Had she ever actually… said that to her? That she loved her?

This thought was interrupted by RainbowDash talking.

“Am I good to ask something about your vampirism? Just to… get some information.” She asked calmly, moving out of the embrace and into a sitting position.

Fluttershy rolled onto her front to face her. It was weird being this much taller than her, even when lying down.

“S-Sure.”

“Does anypony else know?” She asked. Fluttershy felt guilt flow through her.

“J-Just Twilight and Z-Zekora. Zekora helped me with m-my need for… you know, a-and I told Twilight b-because I… don’t usually have a reflection.”

Rainbowdash nodded. She still felt somewhat hurt that FlutterShy hadn’t told her, but she could imagine doing the same thing. She had been guilty about keeping up a lie because she was fearful of others being sad… she had to tell PinkiePie about her hatred of pies someday.

“And your body… how long will it be until AppleJack gets, uhm…” she tried to phrase it in a good way. “Hungry? Thirsty?”

Fluttershy gulped a little. “W-Well, uhm… I’m usually fine with animal b-blood for a few days. Usually I have a Zekora potion to help me… stay calm. I just hope that they manage to get down the mountain I-in time to find Twilight… or Zekora.”

“And… what will happen if she doesn’t?”

“W-Well…” she looked down anxiously at her oversized hooves. “She’ll… she’ll start to get… agitated… a-agressive… s-show signs of batpony features, and eventually attack the closest… p-pony too her. Which would p-probably…”

“Be me.” RainbowDash finished for her. The pair sat in awkward silence as the danger of the situation really set in.

“Well… if anypony can fend off an angry AppleJack, it’s Rarity! Especially in my awesome body! So I think it will be fine, as long as we all meet up when we agreed. S-So I think we should both do our best not to worry, Kay?” She said, reassuring herself as well as Fluttershy.

“I-I know…” she said, smiling a tiny bit as she remembered something. “W-We did manage to fend off D-Dr Cabaleron together! H-He was a Yak!”

“WHAT!? You got to fight a Daring Do villain!? No fair!”

Fluttershy giggled a little. “Yeah! It was… mostly me… OH! Th-that’s right! We got the ice!” She said.

“Oh! Yeah! Awesome! W-We got the gem! I think it’s what AJ was looking at when you two swapped, so we should be careful with that.”

“Oh! Good! That’s… g-good!”

“Yeah! Do you think Twilight, Trixie and Pinkie have gotten the thingy from Tartarus yet.”

“I hope so…” she said, looking up at the ceiling.

How WERE the others doing?

“S-so we can return back to Ponyville, right?”

Rainbowdash laughed awkwardly. “Well…. We are kind of wanted by the horse police.”

“… what.”

This had to have been one of the most infuriating days of Twilight’s life.

They were about a day away from Tartarus by now, and she and Trixie (in HER body) had been pulling the caravan together all the way. She didn’t understand why Trixie insisted that they take the cart. She could, however, understand why PinkiePie had insisted she took the position of ‘evil pony looker outerer’, which consisted of her sitting on top of the caravan with a comically large magnifying glass to spot any shifty looking ponies that may approach. Unfortunately for them, many ponies were approaching due to one of their number being a princess.

And Trixie was loving the attention.

The first couple of times, Twilight had tiredly explained that she was in fact Twilight, and her usual body was inhabited by Trixie Lulamoon. But this always ended with Trixie showing off her new magical prowess in the background as Twilight tiredly reaffirmed to stay calm and not look into mirrors. Eventually she gave up and instead just endured Trixie pretending to be her. What wasn’t helping was how much PinkiePie was laughing at her jokes. A little too hard, to be honest.

As dusk began to fall, Twilight turned to Trixie.

“Okay Trixie. I need you to fly up and see if you can see a safe spot to camp.” asked Twilight calmly. Trixie smirked at her. God. She was getting sick of that smirk.

“What’s wrong, Sparkles! Can’t you fly up and do it yourself?” she teased as she undid herself from her harness. Twilight just rolled her eyes.

“Gooooing up! Hehe! I am getting so used to flying, Twilight! I’m somewhat of a natural… maybe I should have been the alicorn princess!” she laughed, flying up into the sky to look around. Twilight sighed, and looked up at PinkiePie.

“Thanks for coming with us, Pinkie…” she said. PinkiePie beamed back. “Of course! I’d never abandon a friend in need! Especially you right now because, not to be, mean or anything, but you’re REALLY in need. Some crazy horse is in your body, Twilight! That's kind of… Scary, right?” she said, the beaming smile slowly draining. “I’d hate having somepony else’s body! I’m not sure they’d be able to squash and stretch as much as I do. And what if somepony got into MY body! Then they’d be like noodles! Flopping around everywhere! BLLEUAUAUGHGHGHGH!” she said, waving her arms like an inflatable tube man. Twilight laughed as she did. PinkiePie’s smile grew wide again. “I love to see you smile, Twi!”

Twilight nodded. “And I love to see you still so full of energy despite everything.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? I’m FREE! I’m free to run around the fields and through the meadows and the streams! I’m not rotting in a cage somewhere like a trapped songbird, yearning to be free!” she said, staring off into the horizon happily. Twilight tilted her head slightly, but before she could follow that train of thought, her hair was blown everywhere by the huge gust of wind that announced the haphazard landing of one Trixie Lulamoon.

“A CAVE, TWILIGHT! I FOUND A CAVE!” She declared happily. “I found it all on my OWN! Are you proud of me!”

“YES! YES I AM!” said PinkiePie, clapping rapidly. “You’re so talented!”

“Yes, I rather am, aren’t i?” She agreed.

“Using my wings…” Grumbled Twilight.

“Aww… is somepony jealous? You jelly? Jelly jelly horse jelly? Want your wings back? Hehe you CAN'T because they’re mine now!” She said, grinning at her as she trotted around, proudly displaying the wings.

“Trixie…” Twilight groaned. “Please, let’s just get to the cave you saw. You can continue whatever this is when we’re there.”

“Anything for a mare as delectable as you~” she said, and happily trotted away. Twilight let out another big sigh. Trixie had been making flirty comments towards her this whole trip and she kept on having to remind herself that it was only because she looked like Trixie (which was of course the object of Trixie’s affection). It had weirdly gotten her thinking about herself a couple of times. It was strange seeing yourself from different angles, but Twilight could be happy that she still thought she was quite pretty.

She had decided to simply not deal with how she felt about Trixie’s body when she thought about how naturally pretty the blue pony was. Some feelings are best left buried far, far down within you with an unbreakable lock and no key.

After a short trip, the three ponies found themselves staring into the dark cave in front of them. Trixie and Twilight ignited their horns to create light, whilst Pinkie summoned a pair of night vision goggles from wherever it is she usually gets her props.

“Perfect!” Said Trixie, who trotted in without much thought. Twilight was much more cautious.

“Be careful, Trixie. Caves like these can have all sorts of creatures. Wyverns, Cockatrices or-“

She was cut off by the whimpering squeak that involuntarily came out of Trixie’s mouth. Twilight felt the wind from the creature's breath before she saw it towering over Trixie.

The gently glowing outline of an Ursa Minor.

“T-Trixie.” She hissed in a panicked whisper. “Slowly back away. M-Maintain eye contact.”

Trixie wasn’t moving at all. She seemed to be paralysed with fear. Twilight saw her wings clamp to her side; a similar response that Fluttershy had when scared.

Twilight looked back at Pinkie, who had a brave face on but she could see her legs wobbling like jelly.

Turning back to face the great starbear, she readied herself. Nopony else could deal with this creature right now.

“Pinkie… on my mark, grab Trixie…” whispered Twilight. Pinkie nodded.

Twilight built up as much energy as she could within her horn. It was significantly less than usual, but it would have to do. Trixie was slightly more powerful than an average Unicorn but nowhere near the level that Twilight had been when she was one. However, Twilight had cottoned on to there being a certain type of magic that the blue unicorn had a natural innate talent for. Muttering the spell and making the correct motions, she let out a cry as there was a bright flash. The Ursa Minor roared, rearing up onto its hind legs as it was blinded by the light.

“PINKIE! NOW!”

PinkiePie didn’t wait. Shooting forward she tackled Trixie aside, dragging her outside of the cave. The Ursa Minor slammed its paws on the floor angrily right in the spot that Trixie had been inhabiting moments before.

Twilight was on her own. Sure, PinkiePie would probably be able to run distraction work, but Twilight wasn’t willing to risk her actually getting hurt.

The star bear now towered above her and Twilight was rapidly trying to remember the semantics of the spell she was trying to cast. It was one that she had tried many times before but hadn’t been able to pull off successfully. But with this unfamiliar cutie mark on her flank she was sure she’d be able to pull it off.

Swirling magic around in a tight circle as she dodged another colossal paw slamming down, she pictured the image of herself, and stomped down her hoof. Releasing the spell, a blueish orb flew across the cave, and the image of Twilight Sparkle appeared, 3 dimensional and moving. The Ursa turned around and snarled at it, trying to slap it with a paw. It vanished, reappearing a few feet away.

Twilight had cast the spell a few more times, and there were now five different twilights around the bear, confusing it into a deranged rage. Twilight hid behind a boulder, and muttered something. All of the illusionary twilights flew up, and just as she had hoped the Ursa Minor tried to swat at one, smashing into the side of the cave. The whole structure shook, which was Twilights cue to leave. The cave collapsed in on itself, crushing the Ursa Minor.

Twilight landed in a heap on the outskirts of the cave, Trixie’s frail legs giving way.

“Twilight!?? Did you just murder that BEAR!? WHAT IS WITH YOU AND MURDERING!” Exclaimed PinkiePie.

“Who else have I murdered?” She asked, sliding up into a sitting position.

“All of my clones, duh!”

“They weren’t really alive. Anyway, I didn’t kill that bear…” she said, pointing at the cave. Shimmering out of the cracks between the rocks came what looked like a Liquid Aurora Borealis with the consistency of oil gently flowing up and into the twilight sky.

“When an Ursa gets mortally wounded, it reforms into the stars it’s made of. It will reform in the next couple of months, fresh and reborn!”

PinkiePie seemed uncharacteristically upset as she stomped back off to the caravan.

Twilight let out a confused little ‘hmm…’, and turned to see-

“How did you do that!?”

Trixie was right in her face, causing Twilight to jump a bit.

“D-Do what!?”

“That spell! I can’t do that!”

“Well… you can. Have you ever tried?”

“Well, no-“

“Well there you go then.” Said Twilight, sounding a little smug. “Your Cutie mark is in illusion magic, right?”

“I… is it?” She asked.

“Wait, you don’t… how don’t you know!?”

“I just sort of thought it made me powerful.”

“That’s not how… ugh. Anyway, It’s not a spell I could ever manage to do. So I guessed that I’d be able to do it as you. Maybe if you spent some time reading books instead of annoying everypony, you’d be able to truly become great and powerful, huh?” She said, giving a very Trixie like grin to her as she passed her by.

For once, Trixie was on the back hoof.

Twilight moved back towards the caravan to check on Pinkie, leaving Trixie alone with her thoughts.

Back in the cave, the sight of the great starbear had paralysed her completely. It brought back memories of her and Twilight’s first meeting. Her having to admit that she was a fraud. Her sad and lonely escape to a tiny cave where she had cried herself to sleep. The burning hatred for Twilight Sparkle that had started to fester. All of that came back at once and sideswiped her like a Manehatten taxi.

But she could have done it.

Back in Ponyville, she could have used magic to defeat the bear. She was capable. But she didn’t know how.

She looked between Twilight and then at the cave in complete disbelief. She had always assumed that she was just bad at magic. But maybe she just hadn’t been taught it properly? Well, she had never really been taught in the first place; her only real teacher was herself.

‘You’d truly become great and powerful…’

That sentence from Twilight wouldn’t leave the back of her mind as she moved over to the caravan, staring at Twilight as she lit a fire. She decided not to let it bother her. She had more pressing matters at hand… mainly speaking, how gosh darn PRETTY her body was. The brief moment of inner humility was washed away by what came out of her mouth.

“Twilight, can I kiss you?”

“W-What!?” Twilight’s head shot up.

“Well, more accurately, can I kiss me?“ she followed up, smiling.

Twilight was mystified. “No!? What? Why would you want to-“

“I just want to kiss the hottest girl in Equestria, obviously?” She said, as if it was a no brainer. “Plus! You get to kiss an Alicorn!”

Twilight tilted her head. She had never thought about it… it WOULD be a unique experience to kiss oneself… something that nopony else could ever experience. Perhaps she could even figure out what she liked-

“And then, who knows! Maybe we can even get married! Have foals! Get divorced! Then you’d have to pay me alipony!”

The reminder of who was currently inhabiting her body shook her STRAIGHT back to reality.

“No.” She said firmly. “I do not want that, Trixie.” She said, firmly.

Trixie sighed, and nodded. “FIIIInnneee…. Your loss though, Sparks!”

Twilight shook her head as she glanced up at PinkiePie. She seemed to have returned to normal, bouncing up and down as she watched a bird freely fly around in circles above them.

Twilight loved Pinkiepie’s love of the world.

Moving over to the caravan, she got out a certain book, and started to write. Trixie tilted her head at it.

“What is that? Your dream journal or something?”

Twilight shook her head, and finished writing her sentence. “Just writing to a friend.” She said, shutting the book.

“Soooo…” said Trixie slowly. “You know when we, like, get to the gates of hell and all of that… what’s the plan exactly?”

“Well… we shouldn’t need to head that far in. We’ll need Pinkie to distract Cerberus for a bit. All we’ll need to do is head to the highest floor and steal some of the metal that is usually kept in ingots, used by the prison keepers to make the cages. It’s virtually indestructible. Your job will be keeping us safe if anything big attacks us. Do you know how to do a simple beam spell?”

“Uhh… of course!?” She said, and directed a beam at a nearby tree. The tree exploded. Twilight dropped to the ground as splinters rained everywhere.

Trixie blinked.

“It seems the great and powerful Trixie forgot how even more powerful than usual she was…” she said nervously.

PinkiePie’s eyes were wide… staring at Trixie. Neither of the horn having ponies down there noticed, but her eyes narrowed. Something was whirring away in that brain of hers.

“W-Well, it seems like you do know that spell.” She said, slightly terrified of how much untamed power Trixie had in her body.

“Brilliant! Well, that sounds like a wonderful plan! I shall now be retiring to my bed! Would either of you like to join me?” She said hopefully. Twilight just glared at her. PinkiePie shook her head.

“No thanks! Twilight is Smokin’, but you’re kind of cringe!” She said whimsically, causing Twilight to blush a little.

“THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE IS NOT CRINGE!” Trixie roared.

“You are a bit.” Twilight giggled. Trixie roller her eyes.

“FINE! NEITHER OF YOU MAY SLEEP NEXT TO THE MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELORETTE IN EQUESTRIA!” She declared angrily, and slammed the door of the caravan behind her.

Twilight and PinkiePie’s eyes met. They didn’t say anything for a few seconds, before bursting out into laughter at the sound of Trixie tripping over and banging her head inside the caravan.

Little did they know, that was the calm before the storm.

“HEY CERBERUS! WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ME?”

Twilight and Trixie were hiding behind a rock, watching PinkiePie dance around in front of Cerberus wearing a costume that emulated having three heads. She seemed to be trying the oldest trick in the book: seduction. And it was working? Cerberus had all three heads focused on her, at least.

“Come on.” whispered Twilight. She gave a little wave of confirmation to PinkiePie, who nodded back as the pair of swapped ponies entered through the huge gates into Tartarus.

Both their ears flattened as the gates shut behind them.

“I’ve studied countless maps of this place…” whispered Twilight. “The main storage room should be… this way. Follow me.”

“Oh Twi, you already know I’d follow you to hell and back!” Trixie whispered back.

“Not now, Trixie.”

After a few minutes of walking along the narrow path down, they entered the first floor.

They were met with a room filled floor to ceiling with cages of various different sizes, housing all sorts of different monstrous creatures. A particularly ferocious looking sabre toothed bear snarled at Trixie as the pair passed its cage. Trixie barked at it in response.

The bear didn’t know how to respond.

Twilight was trying her best not to look at any of the caged creatures. She knew if Fluttershy was here, she’d be protesting for their release. Twilight partially agreed with the sentiment, but now was not the time.

“How many monsters are in here?” Said Trixie nervously.

“Thousands… if all of these creatures got out, Equestria would be doomed.” She said with a gulp.

They were almost at the huge wooden door of the storage room, when something in a cage started shaking violently, rattling its chains in an incredibly frantic way. Muffled cries from it emanated throughout the room. Twilight’s stomach lurched a bit, but she shut her eyes. She couldn’t look at these creatures right now. She had to stay focused.

“Uhm… T… T-Twilight? I really think you s-should… see… oh my goodness…”

It was the sudden drop of all Trixie’s usual mannerisms that really made Twilight’s blood run cold. She turned her head to look at what Trixie had seen.

The sight before her made her vision go slightly blurry.

With chains around her neck and attached to an an iron muzzle placed over her mouth, a creature that looked just like PinkiePie sat, unable to move. It was making horrible mumbling noises through the mask.

Her face was not normal, however. Her left side had her usual mane but her body had some burn marks around her leg and a strange hook-like apparatus that covered what Twilight assumed to be an amputated stump instead of a hoof. Her right side looked desaturated and faded, hair straight and flat as it flopped down around her hooves. And those eyes… they were eyes that Twilight knew well, but there was a wild panic behind them.

The horrible realization of what this thing was dawned on Twilight. She wanted to throw up.

It was a PinkiePie clone from the mirror pool. One that she hadn’t zapped.

And she had to have been here for years.

“W-What do we do?” Asked Trixie, looking at Twilight. The horrible anxious feeling in her stomach kept on getting deeper as she tried to stay calm.

The strange PinkiePie shouted something muffled once again.

“T-Trixie, c-can you remove her muzzle?” Twilight asked, her voice wobbling.

Trixie nodded, and managed to undo the clasp with her magic. The metal muzzle dropped to the floor, and the creature was left gasping for air.

“T-TWI! I-IT'S ME! I-ITS PINKIE! THE REAL P-PINKIE!l she spluttered, the chains around her neck rattling as she took in long, raggedy breaths. . “W-WE D-DEFEATED DISCORD AND TIREK AND CHRYSALLIS TOGETHER! I BAKED YOU MINT CHOC CUPCAKES FOR YOUR CASTLE WARMING PARTY!”

“Wait… what!?”

Twilight couldn’t comprehend what was going on. This was all true. And recent. A clone of PinkiePie couldn’t know this.

Trixie was also clueless.

“What do you mean!? PinkiePie has been with us this whole time!” Asked Trixie.

“N-No! Trixie! You were there! You saw me swap!” The PinkiePie in the cage pleaded.

“You WHAT!?” Twilight looked at Trixie with shocked anger.

“Y-You swapped!?” Trixie said in disbelief, looking at Twilight with confused fear. “She told me she was still PinkiePie!“

“B-But…” Twilight started to voice the question that she had been dreading.

“If the real PinkiePie is in there…” said Trixie Slowly, dawning on the same realization.

Twilight gulped.

“Then who-“

The PinkiePie in the cage suddenly screamed.

Twilight had experienced many things in her life, many that nopony would ever get to experience. Becoming an Alicorn. Fighting a god. Travelling across time and dimensions multiple times.

But being stabbed in the neck was not one she had hoped to add to the list.

She tried to scream, but instead started violently coughing up blood. She fell to the floor, doing her best to press her hooves to the point of impact, and looked around wildly to try and find her assailant.

The PinkiePie that had been travelling with them was standing over her, knife in her hoof, dripping with blood and grinning. Screams from Trixie and the real PinkiePie were ringing in her ears as she tried her best to stay conscious. Through the blood that was starting to fill her mouth, she sputtered out a whimper of confusion. A billion thoughts were running through her mind, being slowly muffled by the pillow of blood loss. She weakly tried to send a spell up at her, but all that came out of the tip of her horn was a few sparks.

“YOU BASTARD!!” She heard Trixie screech, and a beam of energy shot over the PinkiePie’s head.

“Fuck OFF! TRIXIE! You do NOT need to be here for this! You are a HOOFNOTE IN HISTORY!” Snarled the PinkiePie, who suddenly grabbed a broken shard of reflective glass from inside her mane.

Twilight looked up just in time to see Trixie’s horrified look down towards her, which was only broken when she looked at the PinkiePie…

And blinked.

And just like that, she was gone.

The body of Twilight let out a confused cry as it fell backwards into a sitting position. It looked around the area with fear and confusion. Somepony else was in Twilight's body, too disoriented Twilight didn’t see what happened after that, as the PinkiePie had moved her head back to look up at her.

Twilight could feel herself start to fade.

“"Nopony to protect you now, PRINCESS..."

"You thought you got ALL of us.” The PinkiePie above her Spat. “No. You didn’t. I lived. I am a PINKIE PIE FROM THE POOL! THE LAST REMAINING PINKIE PIE.

“Call me Freako Funtime Icecream Suprise.”

“You may see me as just some sort of MISTAKE… but you forget! I had all the MEMORIES of PinkiePie, Twilight. I remember you. We ALL loved you. And then you killed them. All of my TWINS. You murdered each and every one of them. All of us thought we were the original… and when you zapped me, I didn’t die. I didn’t go back. I survived. I found out I was a fake; a mangled clone of the real deal. A fake. Do you have any Idea what that felt like, Princess of Friendship? Feeling like you want to claw off your fur and mane and hooves and eyes because everything about you is wrong?”

“So I ran. I escaped. I plotted my revenge. I was going to strike. Then your stupid fucking Zebra friend found me and sent me to fucking Tartarus. I was in here for a YEAR, Twilight! An entire fucking YEAR!”

She slammed her hoof down on Twilight’s chest, which made her cough up even more blood. She could hear the real Pinkie screaming hysterically as Freako Funtime continued her deranged monologue.

“Then… as luck would have it… this whole calamity makes me swap bodies with the first Pinkie Pie… imagine my luck? I’ve been planning this for such a long time, Twilight… it’s a shame you aren’t in your original body…” Freako Funtime said, and raised the knife once more.

“But as long as it’s you feeling the pain, then I don’t care. This is for my sisters.”

Twilight closed her eyes.

She thought of her friends.

She remembered them all in the donut store after the first grand galloping gala. Laughing about how much of a disaster it had been.

She kept that moment in her mind as she waited for the inevitable.

She would be with her friends at the table as she waited for the end.

For eternal peace.

But it didn’t come.

The sound of a spell above her rang throughout the chamber, and PinkiePie’s wailing suddenly ceased in a hiccup of surprise.

“WHAT!? How do you KNOW-“ Freako Funtime started, but-

“STAY AWAY FROM HER!”

Twilight heard her own voice speak. Weakly, she opened her eyes to see her body blasting another spell at Freako Funtime. The pink pony snarled as she was blasted away from Twilight. One more spell was fired in her direction, and Twilight heard the sound of a body hitting the ground with a thump.

She soon saw her body again, looking down at her, and casting a spell on her. She recognised it as a healing spell. True healing magic was incredibly advanced, so this spell was more of a stabilisation one. Slowly, Twilight felt herself being pushed away from the edge.

Somepony who knew how to use magic like this… who could it be!? Celestia? Cadence? Luna!? The only other pony who she could even think of having this kind of magical aptitude was Starlight Glimmer, but she had vanished into the ice caves months ago!

“I must say,” exhaled the pony in Twilight’s body, “I didn’t expect to be seeing you again so soon.” She said with a little smile.

Laying on the floor, Twilight managed to tilt her head.

“Who…” she coughed. “Who… are you?”

She saw the pony in the body give a short little laugh of exasperation at the situation she was in. She took Deep breath, and then spoke the two words that Twilight expected to hear the very least out of any.

“Sunset Shimmer.”

Author's Note

So if you were wondering why I kept on putting 'PinkiePie inhabits PinkiePie'... now you know! PinkiePie did indeed inhabit Pinkiepie... just not THAT PinkiePie

Freako Funtime is an oc owned by a friend! Go follow her tumblr she does LOADS of great horse art! You can find her here! Tell her that Zoey sent you!

Here is an example of her art, specifically with Freako Funtime:

I've been so excited to write this bit of the story for SO LONG! I love the idea of PinkiePie clones that didn't get zapped! It was Zigo who made me think 'what if one wanted revenge?' and was gracious enough to let me use the oc!

Let me know in the comments if you noticed something was up after she looked in the mirror or even if you forgot all about it! or just anything i love getting comments afkajsbfjasbdfasbdkfjasbdkfb

hope you all have a wonderful day!

That time Trixie ruined someone’s date by falling down the stairs

🌇Chapter 7🌇

That time that Trixie ruined someone’s date by falling down the stairs

CURRENT STATUS

Twilight Sparkle inhabits Trixie

Sunset Shimmer inhabits Twilight Sparkle

Rainbow Dash inhabits Rarity

Rarity inhabits Rainbow Dash

AppleJack inhabits Fluttershy

Fluttershy inhabits AppleJack

PinkiePie inhabits Freako Funtime IceCream Surprise

Freako Funtime IceCream Surprise inhabits PinkiePie

Shit.

Shit shit shit shit shit.

Sunset Shimmer sat in her bedroom, staring at the clock. It was four minutes to 7.

She would be here in four minutes.

Twilight Sparkle was never late.

Her grip (with her hands that she had because she was not a horse) tightened on her jeans as she glanced over at the mirror.

She was wearing her leather jacket with a red t-shirt and wearing her jeans with fire patterns embroidered onto the sides. They didn’t fit properly anymore but one time, Twilight had said she thought they were pretty. So of course she was wearing them. She needed to look good for her date.

Even the thought of a date with Twilight sent a shiver down her spine. How the hell had she managed to pull this one off?

It had all started with a joke. Sunset had jokingly said “Haha, yeah, imagine us on a date, that would be crazy” whilst reacting to AppleJack and Fluttershy FINALLY getting together, with Twilight having responded sadly: “Oh… I don’t think that It would be that crazy”. One thing lead to another, and Sunset was now sitting in her room, waiting for Twilight to arrive in-

She looked at the clock.

2 MINUTES!?

SHIT!

Okay, Sunset. You’re okay. You can survive this. It’s just a date! Sure, you haven’t exactly BEEN on a date before, but you’re awesome and have cool hair so it's fine!

But what if it isn't fine? What if you mess up? What if you trip her up accidentally and she falls down some stairs and then you’ll have to go to the hospital?

Okay time for distraction.

She moved over to her bed and picked up the book with Celestia’s cutie mark on it, opening it to the latest page. She had been getting a few updates of the going ons in Equestria, and it sounded like chaos. She can’t pretend she didn’t chuckle upon finding out that Twilight had swapped bodies with Trixie of all ponies, but was quite worried about what it could mean for the future of Equestria. She had offered her help, but Twilight had warned that as it was something to do with the mirror dimension, it probably wouldn’t be safe to travel between dimensions and to keep an eye on the mirror portal.

Upon opening the book, she saw that Twilight had written a message yesterday evening. She had completely missed it. Whoops.

“Hey Sunset!

Trixie asked me to kiss her today. I told her no… although I guess it would be interesting to kiss oneself. But then she made some sort of comment about divorce so I decided against it. We are almost at Tartarus, I will keep you updated! Have fun with your date! I can’t wait to meet them!

See you soon,

Twilight.”

Sunset had to laugh at this. She hadn’t actually told Twilight who she was going on a date with. She was going to work out how to word that properly as it wasn’t exactly an easy thing to explain. But that could wait for a time when she wasn’t in the body of a failed magician.

She picked up her pen and started to write.

“Hey Twilight.

Oh my goodness do NOT kiss Trixie. I tried that once. Wasn’t pretty. I mean, she is KIND of pretty, but like, no, no no stay away from that.

Anyway! Yeah I amm kinddd offf petrified right now, to be honest!”

She looked up at herself in the mirror, not seeing that as she had been writing the book had started to glow a strange pinkish and cyan colour. She smiled at herself. You know what Sunset? You DO look cool. Twilight will be here any minute and you’re going to have the best night

Sunset Blinked.

Sunset had the sudden and violent sensation of being thrown off a waterfall inside a barrel made of light, her entire soul getting rattled around like a coin inside of a glass jar. As soon as it started, however, it stopped, and sunset found herself in a dark room on… all fours.

“HUHAUGH!”

She hadn’t been ready to be on fall fours, causing her to fall over. It was so loud… was somepony screaming?

Wait.

Did she just…

Somepony? Instead of somebody?

Why did she feel the familiar feeling of magic coursing through her?

Why did she see…

Ponies?

She looked down at her hands, and in confused horror realised that she didn’t have any. They were hooves. More than that, they were hooves she was all too familiar with.

She was Twilight Sparkle.

She blinked a few times in shock. She had swapped places with Twilight Sparkle! She was in Equestria! How did she get here?

It took her far too long to orient herself back into a quadrapedal mode, and as she stood up, she felt her wings unfurl unnaturally. Oh. Right… she’s an Alicorn-

She froze.

I’m an Alicorn?

She looked back at her wings. Being an alicorn had been her original dream. And just like that… she was here. Sort of.

The sound of the ear piercing screeching from somepony in the room made her senses sharp again, and she turned to survey the scene.

Why was PinkiePie standing over Trixie with a knife?

“This is for my sisters”

In around 2 seconds, every single gear in Sunset’s brain clicked together at just the same moment.

Twilight WAS Trixie.

Everypony was swapping bodies.

That PinkiePie had a knife.

Without even thinking, she shot a magical blast towards the Pinkie with the knife. It missed. She was out of practice, of course.

“WHAT!? HOW DO YOU KNOW-” The PinkiePie snarled, but Sunset was already running towards her.

“STAY AWAY FROM HER!” she cried out in Twilight’s voice. She didn’t have time to feel how weird it was to be talking with the voice of someone she was about to go on a date with.

She blasted again, this time hitting her in the torso. She was scattered backwards, and before the PinkiePie had a chance to do anything else, Sunset let off a knockout spell that hit her in the forehead. The Pink pony slumped to the ground.

Sighing in relief, she looked down to Trixie… no, Twilight. This was Twilight. She wracked her brains. How the hell did one do healing magic? Luckily, muscle memory kicked in, and she placed her horn down, muttering the verbal components and watching the wound slowly close itself up. It would have still done some nasty damage on the inside, but at least she wouldn’t die.

She let out a little chuckle. “I must say… I didn’t expect to be seeing you again so soon.”

“Who… are you?” Twilight whispered up to her. In Trixie’s voice. Celestia, this was confusing.

She let out a little laugh. This was ridiculous. Fucking… ridiculous. 2 minutes ago she was stressing about a date. And now she was (kind of) in her date's body, standing over (kind of) her date who was in an entirely DIFFERENT body as another one of her (kind of) friends lay unconscious on the floor after stabbing her (kind of) date. She shivered, looking down again.

“... Sunset Shimmer.” She said, smiling awkwardly.

Twilight stared up at her… blinked twice, rolled her eyes back up into her head, and passed out.

The only pony with any answers was now also unconscious..

Sunset laughed again, falling back down into a sitting position, head in hooves as she started laughing and laughing and laughing.

She had quit her dreams of becoming an Alicorn years ago. She was happy with her life at canterlot high. And now, with no effort, she was suddenly an Alicorn. But not just any Alicorn. The alicorn that had saved her life, who’s soul was now in the body of a frail magician who needed medical attention. All the while she was unable to ignore how darn GOOD it felt to have this power. All the tension built up more and more before she slammed her hoof down onto the floor, accidentally letting off a blast of magical energy out of her horn. It slammed into the roof, causing rubble and debris to fall down. Various creatures roared and screeched.

“WHY THE FUCK DID THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN TO ME!” she screamed at the universe. “WHY TODAY! I WAS DONE! I DON’T WANT THIS!”

“... Uhm… S… Sunset?”

She snarled a little. PinkiePie. She slowly moved up to the body on the floor.

“You’ve got some nerve trying to even speak to-”

“U-Uh… Wrong one… heh…”

Sunset’s head flipped around to see… another PinkiePie in a cage!?

Sunset looked between the caged Pinkie and the uncaged Pinkie a few times.

“How are there two of you?” she asked slowly.

“Well… Did Twilight ever tell you about the time I-I accidentally fell into the mirror pool?”

“No, but she did tell me about the time you went in there on purpose.”

“... What if I told you they were the same time as each other.”

“Then…”

Sunset smiled with relief a tiny bit but was still pretty shook.

“Then I’d ask you what Twilight’s favourite cupcakes are.”

“Green mint with chocolate chips.” she said immediately.

Sunset sighed with a big relief. Sunset knew that Twilight had only told her friends about that recently. Something about having one at Spellementary school mysteriously handed to her by an unknown filly.

“Okay. I trust you. It's you.”

PinkiePie’s eyes watered up immediately as she started sobbing with relief. “I-It hurts… s-so much… C-Can you let me out? P-Please?”

Sunset nodded, and did a big catlight stretch. It had been a while since she had used much magic, but it seemed like she still had it. Shaking all of her hooves, she concentrated hard, and focused the magical energy around Pinkiepie. She strained a little but after a few moments of precise horn movements, Pinkiepie was teleported out of the cage. She collapsed down onto the floor, coughing a bit, tugging at her neck with the non hooked hoof. She took a few very big gulps of breath before squeezing Sunset incredibly tight. This restricted her airways but Sunset decided it wasn’t really the time to be critical of this as Pinkie cried into her.

“Hey! Hey… It's… ok… you’re fine. You're safe… What happened to your hoof?” Sunset asked softly, noticing her hooked hoof for the first time.

“I don’t know… sniffle I-I was like this wh-when I got s-switched with… her…” she pointed with her split tail at the PinkiePie on the floor. Gently unattaching herself from the alicorn, PinkiePie hobbled over to the sight of her own body.

Pinkie wasn’t the type of pony to get existential.. But seeing her own body on the floor as WELL as sort of being in the correct body at the same time was… a lot.

“I… I hadn’t ever thought about what It would be like to be… one of the mirror pool clones…” she said, sitting down and looking at her hoof and hook. “It must have been horrible… I can’t even imagine what I’d have to go through to want to hurt Twilight…” she said, trailing off at the end, her ears flat against her head.

Sunset felt something start to bubble up inside of her. Anger.

When she had first heard of this whole swapping debacle, she had thought it would just be another fun adventure for her pony friends to go on with a fun friendship lesson at the end. She had just assumed it would be another fun thing to hear about as she hung out with her human friends…

But looking down at the wounded Twilight and mentally shattered PinkiePie… she was only now realising how truly destructive this had been.

“Somepony had to have caused this…” she growled. “Things like this don’t just happen.”

From her correspondence with Twilight, she understood that the mirror pool seemed to be the key… and they needed to get some infernal steel to get into the pool.

“Once I find out who did this… I’m going to tear them limb from limb.” she said coldly, picking up the mask that PinkiePie had been donning with magic. She sniffed it, its sulfuric smell confirming that it was indeed infernal.

“What are we going to do with her…” said PinkiePie quietly pointing at Freako Funtime.

Sunset shook her head in thought. “We… wait-“

She looked at PinkiePie.

“W-Why am I in charge!?”

PinkiePie raised an eyebrow!

“You’re an Alicorn, and I’ve been stuck in a prison for 3 days.”

Right…

She WAS an Alicorn…

“We should probably take her with us for when we figure out how to get everybody… sorry, everypony into their original… bodies… wait.”

She froze..

There was something she hadn’t even considered.

If Twilight was in Trixie…

And she was in Twilight…

Which meant-

Oh god no.

Sunset suddenly grabbed PinkiePie by the shoulders who let out a little squeak.

“Who the fuck is in my body!?”

“FUCK! T-TWILIGHT!” Trixie had screamed as she was once again flung across the world, once again landing on the floor of whatever room she was in, one again shouting out in an unfamiliar voice. She started coughing as the tears began to fall out of her eyes rapidly.

She had just seen herself get stabbed. Twilight was probably dead. And it was all her fault! Who the hell was that PinkiePie!? She lay on the floor for a few moments, breathing heaving breaths in between her huge sobs as she broke down. However, something quickly pulled her back into sentience.

Something was off. Like, really off. After her first swap she had been disoriented, sure, but now? Every single cell in her body felt wrong.

She put a hoof to her head to try and calm her swimming head, but it wasn’t a hoof. It had… things on it. Like the claws of a bird but… fleshy?? She stared at the weird things. It was clearly some sort of grasper with claws that were… painted black and red?

She looked around the room. Nothing was familiar save the existence of a bed and a wardrobe. Except for…

A mirror.

She knew mirrors were dangerous nowadays, but she figured even if she did swap, she might be free of whatever the hell she was right now.

Carefully, she stood up very shakily. She was used to having four legs, not two, and so needed to steady herself as she just about managed to get up and stay balanced. Then… she looked in the mirror…

…and saw the form of a sobbing woman with yellow and red hair and a leather jacket staring back at her. Her mouth dropped open in shock. So did the girl in front of her.

Trixie was… Who the fuck even is that?

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT????????”

Trixie was screaming again, pointing directly at the thing. There was some weird partially hairless creature staring back at her in the mirror. She felt her face, her lack of muzzle, her… fingers!? GROSS!

She wretched a little, her eyes moving towards the waste bin in the corner, where she quickly collapsed towards and puked.

Her vomiting was interrupted by a high pitched noise.

Ding Dong!

Trixie’s head shot up, and she looked at the open door behind her. A doorbell? They had these wherever she was?

She coughed a little as she stood up, and looked at herself in the mirror. She placed her hooves… no, hands, on the chair in front of it and started giving herself a pep talk.

“Okay Trixie… you’re a disgusting flesh monster who is in reality a unicorn…” she declared, glaring at the creature in the mirror. Her mascara was streaming down her cheeks, leaving a trail, and her strange hair had become a complete mess. “Your real body could be fucking dead. TWILIGHT SPARKLE, the creature of eternal affection, could be a fucking corpse. Your corpse. But that’s ok okay. You are the GREAT and POWERFUL Trixie! You’re going to show this disgusting world who’s boss! You are gonna find a way home, and you’re going to save the world! The WHOLE ENTIRE WIDE WORLD! NOTHING CAN STOP YOU!”

Trixie stood up, marched out the room, and immediately fell down the stairs.

“FUCK!”

As she lay in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, holding her arm in pain, she heard a knock at the front door, which was a few feet away.

“S-Sunset? Are you okay?”

Trixie heard a voice from behind the door. One that made her stomach do a back flip.

Twilights Voice!?

“Huh? T-Twilight! Is that y-you?” She called out. Was that actually her? Or was it whoever she had swapped bodies with? This ‘Sunset’ she had just mentioned?

“Yes, it’s me! Are you ok? I heard a big crash and a thump… oh no! Am I early? I’m so so sorry I can come back later!!”

It WAS Twilight! The real Twilight!

“Y-YOU’RE ALIVE!” She cried out with joy, and managed to stagger herself to the door.

“Uhm… yes?” She replied in confusion.

Trixie took a moment to work out how to use the doorknob, but after a few moments of struggling she opened it with glee, looking down at the horse in front of her!

Wait. That wasn’t a horse. Those were knees.

Trixie’s gaze slowly moved up to see…

“Sunset! Oh goodness, are you ok?”

In front of her stood…

To be honest, Trixie wasn’t sure.

It LOOKED like Twilight, but… not really.

It was another flesh creature, with two long legs and strange appendages at the end of its arms. She was wearing a simple blue dress with a few purple stars woven into the hem. She looked incredible, save for the weird fleshy parts.

What the fuck was happening!? Where even WAS she??

“Sunset?”

Trixie blinked as she got out of her confused state, the Twilight-like creature looking at her with great concern.

“UHM! Yes. I am. Fine.” She said, having to lean against the door frame to not fall over. “I may have! Haha fallen down the stairs! Sorry! Haha-“

“Oh! Oh no! Are you ok? Did you hurt your head? Oh no no this is all my fault! I’m so sorry this was SUCH a stupid idea! I’m sorry I’m sorry this date was such a horrible idea…” The Twilight creature said, beginning to chastise herself as she started scratching her head with her weird painted nails rapidly back and forth.

A DATE!?

Okay.

Trixie was stupid, but she wasn’t stupid. She needed information.

“Okay. Twilight? If that really is who you are. Can you come in? Please!? NOTHING in this world makes ANY SENSE and I need to tell you some things. I also need you to explain some things to me, okay?” She said with frustration, and stepped aside to let her in.

The Twilight infront of her looked scared and confused. Tears started welling up in her eyes, fogging up her glasses. She looked like she was about to break down. “Okay…” she whimpered and came inside, heading into the living room of the house. Trixie shut the door, and staggered over into the living room with her.

Twilight sat down crying into her hands. Trixie felt bad for making the creature cry, but there were more important things to do. She stood in the middle of the room instead of the weird black box on the wall and looked down awkwardly at the creature.

Shit uhhhh how did one apologise.

“I’m sorry for shouting.”

There! Nailed it Trixie!

Twilight cried louder.

Shit.

“I D-don’t understand… y-you s-seemed s-so e-e-excited for this and… R-Rarity told me how l-long you had liked me and I t-thought th-this would b-be s-s-such a lovely evening… w-what did I d-do wrong?” She whimpered, looking up at her through her glasses with huge wet eyes.

Trixie felt her stomach drop, and looked down at her lack of hooves.

Usually, she didn’t care what ponies thought of her, especially Twilight. Ever since she had gone off on her little rant about how ‘Nopony wants you here”, she had been ramping up her teasing of her. She had constructed the weird paradox in her mind that if she kept on being mean to her then it would be ok; Twilight would have a reason to not like her. It was her being purposely mean to her instead of Twilight just not liking who she was.

This wasn’t that Twilight, however.

This weird creature had seemingly been so very excited to go on a date with the creature she was inhabiting, and Trixie’s sudden appearance had wrecked everything.

Once again, a Twilight had a reason to hate her. And it wasn’t one she had chosen herself.

Fuck.

“T-Twilight…” she said softly, holding her arm awkwardly. “I… there’s something I need to tell you… a-about me…”

Twilight hiccuped a bit as she continued to cry. “W-What…”

“Well…” Trixie looked up at the roof. How to word this…

“Y-You see, I’m not actually a… whatever it is we are with these… weird things.” She said. Twilight’s crying has turned to sniffling as she tried to work out what it was her ‘date’ was saying. “And I am not… whoever you think I am.” Trixie continued.

“H-Huh?”

“T-This may be hard to believe but…” she took a deep breath.

“I am a horse.”

Trixie watched the Twilight’s face in anticipation, expecting her to be surprised.

Instead, she looked… just about the same

“I know?”

HUH?

“What?”

“I know you’re from Equestria, Sunset. We’ve been over this.”

“YOU KNOW ABOUT EQUESTRIA?” Trixie suddenly shouted in glee.

“Yes?”

“And you’re saying that I’M from Equestria!? I’m a pony?”

“Yes!? S-Sunset, what’s gotten into you! Have you had memory loss from your f-fall?”

“HA! YEA! TRIXIE CAN STILL SAVE THE WORLD! YYEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

Trixie was celebrating bombastically, but due to her unfamiliarity of her body she stumbled backwards into the TV. It knocked it off its stand and it fell to the floor with a big CRRAAASSSSHHH. Trixie swore and stumbled back onto the sofa, now sitting next to Twilight.

“Whoops.”

Twilight was staring at her. She took her glasses off to wipe the tears from her eyes.

“I’m… sorry… but what does Trixie have to do with any of this?”

Trixie looked at Twilight. “You… know… Trixie?”

“Y-Yeah, that annoying magician girl who you made out with that one time? What does she got to do with saving the world!?”

Trixie short circuited.

There was ANOTHER Trixie in this world!?

And this body has KISSED her?

SHE WAS IN THE BODY OF SOMEPONY WHO HAD KISSED TRIXIE!

She managed to hide her huge beaming smile. It was time to actually explain what was going on.

“So… uhm… I am…”

She immediately didn’t know how to phrase it properly.

“So you know how… there is also a Twilight in Equestria?” She started.

“Yes… w-we’ve met, remember?”

“Uhm, no. Well, in Equestria… there is also a Trixie.”

“Okay…” said Twilight slowly.

“Anddddd has… uhm, Sunset, was her name? Well, had Sunset mentioned how everypony in Equestria has been swapping bodies?”

“She did say… that… I… oh…”

Twilight’s eyes slowly got wider as she made direct eye contact with Trixie.

“You’re…”

“Yep! Congratulations, weird fleshy Twilight! You’re in the presence of the great and powerful Trixie! But the one who is a Unicorn!”

Twilight was less enamoured by this than that Trixie had hoped.

“T-Then where’s Sunset? In your body?”

“Oh, no, my body is currently lying dying on the floor with Equestrian Twilight Sparkle inside. I was in Twilight's body! Sooo… I’d assume that’s where Sunset is now!” She said, her voice wobbling a little. She had managed to forget about the fate of her own body for a little while.

Twilight sat for a good minute, head in hands.

The silence in the room was having the dangerous thing of letting Trixie think without distraction about how truly fucked up the situation she had left was. Was she going to return to Equestria with a dead body and no Princess Twilight Sparkle? Eventually, Twilight took a deep breath. Her makeup was ruined but she didn’t seem to be worried about it right now.

“Well then… w-we need to go to Equestria.”

Trixie was startled a bit being so lost I thought.

“You… know a way there?”

“Yes, S-Sunset showed me. But first, I need you to tell me everything.”

“Everything?” Asked Trixie.

“Yes, everything.” Reaffirmed Twilight. “I n-need to save my best friend. My… my date. My…” she rubbed the back of her neck, avoiding eye contact. “The person I love. I need to s-save Sunset Shimmer.”

Trixie couldn’t help but smile a little at seeing Twilight’s determination to save someone she cared about.

“Okay! Well… It all started when I was born, at a VERY young age-“

“What? No! About the whole body swapping thing!”

“OH! Uhh… oh, right-“

She was going to have to tell her about how it was kindddd of her fault, wasn’t she?

Fuck.

“TRIXIE!?”

Sunset Shimmer had just been informed of who was most likely residing in her body. She couldn’t think of anypony worse.

Maybe spike.

Where even was Spike.

Oh well, Twilight was unconscious. No way to find out.

“Yeah….” Said PinkiePie. “Sorry about… that.”

“For fucks sake.” She growled at herself. “I was about to go on a date, Pinkie. She’s going to fuck everything up.”

The news of a date seemed to alight some sort of joy in PinkiePie, who’s ears perked up. She even managed a real, non forced smile. Even though she had only met Sunset Shimmer a few times, Pinkie still considered Sunset one of her side besties (as she did with most ponies). PinkiePie LOVED to hear about romantic things between her friends.

“A DaaAAAaaatEEE?” She said, smirking as she shimmy’d up to her. ‘Whooo withhh????”

Sunset let out a little chuckle, avoiding eye contact.

‘Heh… the human Twilight Sparkle.“

“Ohhhhh! Wait… ohhhh!!! OHHHHH!!!!!!! Oh? Oh… oh oh oh….” PinkiePie responded, seemingly going through all five stages of grief. “Which makes… this preettyyyyy awkward, right?”

“Yeah. Very awkward.” She said, glancing back at herself again.

“But hey…” PinkiePie adopted a very Trixie-like expression with one eyebrow raised high. “You are technically inside of Twilight right now-“

“Oooookkkayyy that’s enough out of you” Sunset cut her off, laughing. “Come on, we better get out of here before Tirek wakes up or something.”

She carefully lifted up Twilight onto her back as well as Freako Funtime. Just Twilight was fine; Trixie’s body was as heavy as a loaf of bread. Freako Funtime was considerably heavier, which put some strain on her back. Twilight may be an Alicorn but she was still a nerd.

“You sure you don’t need a hoof? Or hook?” Asked PinkiePie, but her quickly falling over due to her lack of experience with using her hook hoof answered the question for her.

The conscious pair of horses quickly moved out of the gates, but stopped as they saw the horrible sight of a badly injured Cerberus laying on the floor. There were slash marks over its paws and legs, and a few very nasty ones around the eyes. Neither pony said anything for a few moments, but both knew the only pony that could have done this was currently resting on Sunset Shimmer’s back.

Sunset did some quick healing magic on the great guard dog but other than that, there was nothing they could do but move on. They just had to hope nothing got out.

They had to search about for a bit, but they eventually found the Caravan belonging to Trixie. PinkiePie offered to stay outside and keep watch, adding that she had “a lot on her mind. And also inside if.” Sunset’s nose wrinkled a bit at the smell as she entered, but carefully placed down the still unconscious Twilight onto the bed. She placed Freako down onto the floor, and tilted her head. It seemed impossible to believe that a PinkiePie could do so much damage, but the remnants of the blood of both Twilight and Cerberus was flecked all over her body.

Sunset concentrated hard and managed to cast a simple rope conjuring spell and tied her hooves together and placed her in the closet. She figured that if she were to wake up and had to be pacified, the noise of the closet door opening would at least give them some warning.

Right… now for Twilight.

She looked down at her, frowning. The wound on her neck had stopped bleeding, but it would certainly leave a nasty scar. Twilight’s breathing was pained but steady. Sunset was no doctor, but she knew that this needed more powerful treatment if she wanted to recover.

Carefully, she placed her horn on her forehead, and cast the revival spell. Twilight jolted a little, her eyes aching open. She used a hoof to block out the light in the room, leaving only Sunset in view.

“Tr… Trixie… is that… you…?” she asked weakly.

“No, it’s Sunset. Remember?”

Twilight looked at her for a few moments before nodding. “S-Sorry… I’m not… quite sure what’s real right now.”

“Okay. Well, you are safe and secure inside Trixie’s caravan. The Pinkie clone that attacked you is tied up in the cupboard and won’t be able to harm you. I am Sunset Shimmer and…” she gave a big sigh. “And Trixie is now in my body, back in the other dimension.”

Twilight groaned and shut her eyes.

“I’m so sorry to hear that… I know how it feels…” she said, managing to smile. “I-I’m glad it’s you inhabiting me now instead of her. A-At least we’ve got somepony competent at magic as an Alicorn.”

Sunset rubbed her hooves together awkwardly.

“Yeah… anyway, have you got any idea of how this even happened?” She asked, moving her purple bangs out of her eyes.

Twilight shook her head. “No… I had assumed it would-“ she suddenly hissed in pain and put a hoof to the wound. Sunset put a hoof around her for comfort.

“…Would have been contained to E-equestria. What were you doing when you swapped?”

“I was writing in our book… OH” she said, and both her and Twilight realised at the same time what it meant.

“Since the portal between our worlds also uses the mirror dimension, it’s possible that you h-holding the book caused some of the magic to spill over?” She suggested. “I-It’s just a hypothesis.”

“It will do for now.” She said, and showed her the infernal metal mask. “I managed to swipe this though.”

“O-Oh! Great!” She said. She went to stand up on to to cry out in pain, falling back into a lying position. Sunset winced.

“We need to get you proper medical attention, and soon. Where exactly are we?” Asked Sunset, looking out the window at the sparsely populated forest.

“N-Near the gates of Tartarus… Canterlot is… about a day away…”

“Okay. Is the sun and moon still cycling?

“As far as I know, yes.”

“Good. That means the princesses are still in their bodies. Or, at least, somepony competent is in them. Pinkie and I will do our best to get us there. You need to rest as much as you can…” she said, frowning at the body infront of her. Trixie’s mane did look to be in a right state, and her legs were pretty frail looking. Twilight seemed to notice this and shut her eyes again.

“Is Trixie in a safe place?” She asked with worry.

“Yeah, I was just in my room… about to head out on… my…” Sunset started before realising that she was going to have to spill the oats about who the date was with.

“Oh! Oh no, your date! Does she… does she know about you being equestrian?”

“Yeah… she does. She… uhhh…” she took a deep breath. “She’s you.”

It took a moment to Twilight to register what she meant but when she did her eyes went wide. A tiny blush filled her face.

“O-Oh! Uhm… I… cool! That’s cool…” she said, breaking eye contact and looking anywhere that wasn’t at Sunset.

Sunset felt a horrible pit in her stomach open up. She had guessed as much… she had noticed Twilight erasing messages a lot in their correspondence to each other as well as catching her staring whenever she came to visit Canterlot high.

This sucked.

“Uhm… yeah… sorry to have it come out like this…” she said, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. “Can we… uhm… is it okay if we… deal with this later? When this is all fixed and sorted?”

“Y-Yeah. Sounds good.” Twilight said, still avoiding eye contact.

The long, awkward silence was broken by the sound of banging coming from the closet. She had awoken. Twilight sat up with fear in her eyes, but sunset had already moved in between them, glaring down at the wardrobe. “Want me to stun her again?”

“N-No I… I want to talk to her.” Twilight answered, staying on the bed. Sunset nodded and moved to the side, ready to jump in on a moment's notice. Carefully, she opened the closet door.

Freako Funtime fell out, snarling as she thrashed around wildly, trying to get out her bindings.

“RELEASE ME!” She hissed, her thrashing only stopping as Sunset gently levitated her off the ground, her now being stuck facing twilight.

“… Hello.” Twilight started softly.

“Why aren’t you dead?” Freako Funtime replied, spitting towards her. She missed.

“I was saved by Sunset here.” Twilight replied calmly, pointing to her own body. Sunset’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Who the fuck is Sunset?” She asked angrily.

“Someone who has enough power to crumple you like a ball of paper.” Sunset responded coldly. “So I’d watch what you say.“

Freako Funtime growled at her, her gaze falling back onto Twilight.

“I bet you’re happy. You can finish what you started. Go on. Zap me. End me. Send me back to the mirror pool. I’m fucking READY. Don’t feel bad! Remember! We’re not really alive! So it’s fine if you kill me!” She said, spitting as she started struggling in her binds again. Twilight’s ears had gone all the way back onto her head.

“I… am so, so sorry.” She said, quietly. Tears were already gently rolling down her face. “I-I failed you. I failed all of you. I didn’t even consider-“

“Don’t give me that.”

Freako Funtime had cut her off.

Twilight took a sharp inhale of shock.

“Oh yes, I know your shtick. I AM a PinkiePie. I know how you work! So here we go. My FAVOURITE part of the episode! The bit where the divine and wonderful Twilight Sparkle apologises and makes everything right by saying the right words, just so you can send off a letter to Celestia to show what a good little student you are!”

“I… I don’t know what you…” Twilight spluttered out, but she was cut off again as Freako started screeching at her.

“I know what you see me as. Just another FUCKING friendship problem to be fixed with a simple solution. YOU CAN’T FIX THIS, TWILIGHT SPARKLE. FRIENDSHIP CAN’T BRING BACK MY SISTERS. YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGIVEN AND I WILL NEVER FORGET HOW YOU DESTROYED THEM! AND YOU BEST BELIEVE THE NEXT TIME I GET A CHANCE, I’M GOING TO SKIN ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS ALIVE AND MAKE YOU WATCH! YOU CAN SEE HOW IT FEELS TO BE LEFT WITH NOTHING! HOW IT FEELS TO BE! NOTHING! AT! AAAAALLLL!”

Twilight couldn’t move. The feral screeching from the PinkiePie in front of her had shut her down completely. It felt like her brain had been disconnected from her body, and every single signal that she sent to move backwards was quashed by the fear instilled into her by the near rabid image of one of her best friends. It was the hatred in her eyes which was hurting her the most.

Sunset understood when enough was enough, and cast another knockout spell. Freako Funtime went limp.

Sunset placed her back in the closet but not before adding another rope around her whole body. She shut the doors tight, adding more rope, before turning to Twilight, who had curled up onto the bed in a quivering ball of anxiety and fear. Sunset hopped up onto the bed, and embraced her with both her forelegs and wings.

“Shhhh….” She said softly. “You’re going to be ok.”

“I f-failed…” she whimpered.

“You didn’t fail. She’s wrong, Twilight. You didn’t know.”

“I still did it though.”

“Twilight. R-Remember who you’re talking to. You need to forgive yourself.”

“I-It isn’t just her. I failed all of her sisters, too. And I failed Trixie… s-she’s a mess. This caravan… I-it looked horrible… she had been living like this for months… all because I didn’t reach out. I just accepted her apology and watched her leave… I assumed that was the problem solved. A-And now she’s going on a date in y-your body with m-me from another u-universe…”

Sunset tightened her embrace.

“None of these things are your fault, Twilight. Trixie will be ok…” she said, frowning a little.

“As long as she doesn’t do anything stupid.”

Sparkles45: Hi girls so uh. Not to alarm you but Sunset has swapped bodies with Trixie from Equestria so we are heading to the portal. I need to get in to save her. Right now she is in the body of the me from Equestria. We shouldn’t be gone too long x

No1_Wolderbolt_Stan: Okay what the fuck

No1_Wonderbolt_Stan: What the fuck do you mean she’s swapped bodies with Sunset who’s now in other Twilight?????????????

AppelinaJackson04: Twi, please tell us if this is a joke now so we can get us laughing of the way.

Sparkles45: No joke. It’s really bad. But apparently, the Twilight in Equestria knows what to do. Who’s now in the body of Equestria’s Trixie.

Rarity.Belle.Fashion: Good Grief

CanterlotAnimalShelterOfficial: Okay Twilight💖💖💖💖 please stay safe! ❤️❤️ Let us know when you are back! 🦄🦄 I bet you will make a beautiful unicorn

Rarity.Belle.Fashion: yes, stay safe Darling! So much for your date…

BubblesAndBaloons: SAY HI TO OTHER PINKIEPIE FOR ME! WE NEED TO HOOK UP AT SOME POINT!

AppelinaJackson04: Pinkie when you say hook up what do you mean

BubblesAndBaloons: Wouldn’t YOU like to know, weathergirl!

AppelinaJackson04: Yes.

Sparkles45: Don’t worry girls! Trixie says she drives a motorcycle, we should be there soon! I will let you know when we are heading in!

Sparkles45 is now offline

AppelinaJackson04: TWI WAIT DON’T BELIEVE TRIXIE SHE DEFINITELY DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO RIDE ONE

AppelinaJackson04: shit

No1_Wonderbolt_Stan: I’ll arrange the funeral

“AAAAAHHHHHHH! YOU SAID YOU KNEW HOW TO DRIVE THIS THIIINNNGGGG!” The human Twilight screamed, holding on tight to the waist of the Trixie who currently inhabited the body of the punk princess herself, who herself was speeding down the road on a motorcycle.

“I CAN! LOOK! I’M DOING IT- FUCK!” She screamed back, swerving out of the way of the car coming their way just in time. “IT'S JUST LIKE FLYING WITH WINGS! BUT INSTEAD OF WINGS ITS WHEELS! HAHA! I GET WHY SUNSET ENJOYS THIS SO MUCH!”

“LEFT! LEFT AND FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING I HOLD DEAR DON’T CRASH!” Twilight shouted back. Trixie just cackled as she zipped round the corner.

After many more near misses, the pair arrived at the school. It was about 8pm by now, and the streets surrounding the buildings were pretty much deserted.

Both got off the motorcycle. Trixie happily strolled towards the horse statue where Twilight fell onto her hands and knees, almost throwing up on the floor.

“Never… a-again…” she managed to get out, breathing in and out heavily.

“I should come back here again! This place is GREAT!” Trixie said, marvelling at the school infront of her.

Twilight rubbed her head as she followed up. “Trixie… I think you forgot something…” she said, looking back at the motorcycle that was parked in the middle of the road.

“Pfft, nah. What's the worst that could happen?” she said smugly. Seconds afterwards, a large bin lorry sideswiped the motorcycle, sending it flying down the street. Twilight and Trixie both wordlessly watched it bounce down the street, with the former quickly glaring at the latter.

“... I’ll pay for a new one.” Trixie said hastily.

“Does currency even convert between dimensions?” asked Twilight with a groan. “Come on. Sooner I can get you out of my girlfriend’s body the better.”

“I thought this was your first date? How is she already your girlfriend?” she asked.

Twilight flushed furiously as she practically dragged her to the statue, ignoring the question. It had been a freudian slip.

“Okay. I-I’ve never actually been in myself, but I think we just…” she said slowly, and put a hand through. The stone warped and rippled as if it were water. “Ah! Ok…” she said, taking a deep breath. “Let's do this! Let's go save Sunset!”

“... And everypony else.” Trixie added.

“Yes, and everyone else.”

“It's everypony.”

“Huh?”

“You know. Because we’re horses in there.”

“But isn’t everyone still an indefinite pronoun that catches anyone that it covers?”

“Anypony.”

Twilight opened her mouth to speak again before realising it was pointless.

“Ugh. Let's just go.” she said, and grabbed her hand. She stepped in, pulling Trixie with her.

The pair were immediately met with a huge kaleidoscope of colours and shapes as they were rapidly pushed through the mirror space between worlds. Twilight was screaming the whole time, whereas Trixie was cackling with glee. The tube-like chromatic vortex seemed to have some sort of barrier in its path and when they passed it, the two people became ponies in a flash.

Trixie did a big stretch. “Now THIS is more like it!” she said, smiling wide as she could still feel a high amount of power in her horn. Not quite as high as Twilight, unfortunately, but still a sizable amount.

“WYWOAWOHAOH! H-HOOVES! I HAVE HOOVES!” Cried out Twilight as she looked over her new horse body. She was still just a unicorn instead of an alicorn, but the main distinguishing feature she had was that, for whatever reason, she kept her glasses in the crossing of dimensions.

There was a light at the end of the tunnel, and Trixie thought she could just about make out the main room of Twilight’s castle!

“WE’RE ALMOST THERE!” she cried out in glee.

This was not meant to be, however, as a huge echoing voice rang out through the vortex.

“You are not supposed to be here, Twilight Sparkle”

The pair of horses barely got a look at each other before they felt their route get forcefully diverted away from the natural conclusion of the tunnel between worlds. Before they could understand what was happening, they suddenly stopped dead. They were left floating in the strange abstract dimension of colours and reflections, as a huge shape appeared in front of them.

It was a swirling pool of a gaslike substance, with a lilac body and purple extrusions that flew out behind it like hair. Two swirls of purple and white formed around its ‘head’, looking like eyes with its own set of smoke flying out of it. Neither of the recently turned ponies had seen anything like it.

“What… is that…” Asked Twilight, quivering in place as she floated.

“YOU!” snarled Trixie. “IT’S YOU ISN’T IT! THE FUCKER WHO CAUSED THIS WHOLE MESS!”

“Me…” Replied the entity. “You surprised me, Trixie Lulamoon. There are very few creatures that could manage to pull that off… You somehow got to another world in a way that I DID not expect… even bringing back the body of Celestia’s old student… In a way, I should thank you. This is going to be a lot easier now.”

“What?” Trixie said, her anger suddenly replaced by fear. “What do you mean?”

“But what is NOT so convenient is you…” The creature's gaze moved towards the petrified Twilight Sparkle. “I cannot have another element running around like that… so I’m afraid you’ll be coming with me…”

As she finished, she put one of her colossal ‘hooves’ forwards and seemed to pluck Twilight from her spot, physically warping her appearance as she was dragged away.

“AAAUAGH! T-TRIXIE! HELP ME!”

Trixie snarled again, and tried to shoot a magic blast at the entity. The cyan beam shot right through as if it were nothing.

“T-TWILIGHT! NO!” she cried out, trying to ‘swim’ towards her, but nothing was happening.

“TRIXIE! YOU NEED TO- YOU NEED TO GET TO S-SUNSET! SHE’LL F-FIX EVERYTHING! SHE ALWAYS DOES! AND TELL HER THAT I L-LOVE HER!” was the last thing that Twilight was able to get out as the entity used its other ‘hoof’ to push Trixie away. Trixie was suddenly travelling at what felt like a million miles an hour, a huge scream coming out of her mouth as she suddenly felt something hard on her back.

And just like that, she was back in Equestria.

Trixie burst through the wooden boards covering the mirror, smashing onto the ground with a crunch. Splinters ravaged her sides, tearing it to shreds, as a particularly large shard lodged itself into her thigh. She skidded into a wall with a thud, completely winding her.

Coughing and wheezing, Trixie looked up in horror at where she had just come from. It was a regular mirror that somepony had obviously tried to cover up, as to prevent anypony from looking in it and getting swapped. She leapt back up and leaped at the mirror, only to bash her nose off of it and collapse to the ground again.

“Fuck fuck FUCK FUCK! SHIT! FUCK! UGHGHH! WHY CAN’T I DO ANYTHING RIGHT!” she roared in anger. “ALL I HAD TO DO WAS JUST GO THROUGH A FUCKING PORTAL AND NOW I’VE GONE AND LOST TWILIGHT SPARKLE TO THAT… THAT THING!” She said, staggering to her feet. “ALL I’VE DONE FOR THE PAST THREE DAYS IS FUCK EVERYTHING UP BEYOND REPAIR! SEEMS TO BE WHAT! I! DO! BEST!” She was done. So very done. She didn’t even take in her surroundings as she started blasting magic wildly, causing the foundations of the building to shake. Flames started dancing around her mane as she took huge, heaving breaths.

What used to be a bedroom was now covered in debris as she began to calm down. Glancing around, she saw that she seemed to be somewhere in canterlot, judging by the interior of the room. Probably quite an expensive house, too, judging by the furniture. Wait-

Trixie took a moment to properly look around.

Fuck.

This was the royal castle.

And that meant-

She was only now hearing the footsteps of many a royal guard.

She growled. She would take them all on if she had to. She readied herself for a fight, but was taken aback when two ponies she didn’t expect to see entered the room first.

First came Zecora, with Princess Celestia looming over her from behind.

Trixie stared at them. Zecora stared back. Princess Celestia simply raised an eyebrow.

“It would seem, though it is with concern, that your long lost pupil, has returned.” said Celestia in a strange rhythmic and rhyming way.

Zecora only took a single step forward.

“Sunset? Is that really you?”

“... No.” Said Trixie, taken aback by the two powerful ponies who had suddenly arrived. She had met Zecora before, of course, but Celestia was a new one. She had never actually been in the presence of royalty. Well, anypony who she considered royalty. She just saw Twilight as a hot rival . “M-My name is… T-Trixie Lulamoon.” She said with an unnatural formality.

“Trixie Lulamoon, you say? This certainly has made this an interesting day.”

Author's Note

And that’s another chapter done!

I am not doing it on purpose I swear but every chapter seems to be longer than the last LMAO

I can’t believe Trixie fell down the stairs, beta horse behaviour

I wonder how Sunset will react to hearing that Scitwi has been SCOOPED by the strange mirror entity!

Although, I do find myself wondering… how are the others faring?

That time Applejack thought Rarity looked Delicious

🍎🦇That time Applejack thought Rarity looked delicious🦇🍎

Chapter 8

CURRENT STATUS

Twilight Sparkle inhabits Trixie

Sunset Shimmer inhabits Twilight Sparkle

Trixie inhabits Sunset Shimmer

Rainbow Dash inhabits Rarity

Rarity inhabits Rainbow Dash

AppleJack inhabits Fluttershy

Fluttershy inhabits AppleJack

PinkiePie inhabits Freako Funtime IceCream Surprise

Freako Funtime IceCream Surprise inhabits PinkiePie

Celestia inhabits Zecora

Zecora inhabits Celestia

(Wow this list is getting long isn’t it)

Rarity looked appetizing.

That was the thought that was slowly circling AppleJack’s brain on the night after their trip down the mountain.

It was a thought that she didn’t understand.

The pair of them had left the ruined fort the morning after their night there, having caught each other up with what the other had gotten up to. Rarity was less than pleased with Applejack’s description of RainbowDash’s impression, and AppleJack had been impressed by the pair's defeat of Dr. Cabaleron. They had ended up sleeping next to each other, wings covering each other’s body to preserve heat. Even though it wasn’t her usual body, AppleJack had still been blushing the entire time.

The trip down the mountain had been uneventful, the only real obstacle being the huge ravine. Luckily, Rarity had become quite adept with her wings by now. Nowhere near the level of the body’s usual host, but good enough to carry AppleJack across the huge drop.

It had been a strange experience for the newly turned yellow Pegasus. She was so used to being the one who carried others, yet she felt like she was the one needing to get escorted. She guessed that it was the feeling of uselessness that came with that which prevented her wings from functioning properly. She remembered Fluttershy saying that when she got really anxious, her wings would always seize up and stop working. She could only assume this was the same thing.

There had been a strange feeling in AppleJack’s stomach for the entire day. It didn’t feel like the anxiety she knew all too well from running a farm. It was more like a craving; one that she couldn’t place. It felt like a more primal version of being hungry, if that were possible. Just the inclination that something was missing. What worried her more was the further the day went on, the more the feeling started to increase. It was starting to get in the way of travel. Rarity had needed to stop her from accidentally walking into things multiple times as her brain had too much of a haze to properly take in her surroundings.

It all came to a head when AppleJack had straight up almost walked straight off a cliff. Despite assuring Rarity that she was fine, Rarity had insisted they stop for the night.

And that’s where AppleJack was now, sitting in one of the many caves that littered the lowest section of the mountain path, staring at the sleeping body of the pegasus inhabited by Rarity from the other side of the cave.

Thinking that she looked delicious.

She had tried to rationalise it the best she could. The pair hadn’t eaten that much today (as Fluttershy would usually be foraging). During most of their talks today, AppleJack had for some reason found it a lot harder to ignore how much she was smitten with Rarity, even though she was currently in the wrong body. Applejack had watched her carefully braid RainbowDash’s unwieldy mane with such delicacy and precision, even with her unusual hooves, all the while daydreaming of Rarity braiding her usual blonde haystack of a mane.

But that didn’t explain why she wanted to sink her teeth into her.

It would be so easy.

She ran her tongue along her surprisingly sharp teeth.

With the way Rarity’s neck was exposed, she could bite right into it.

Without even realising it, she had silently walked over to where Rarity slept. She stared down at her, eyes unblinking.

AppleJack wasn’t even aware that she was no longer in control. Instinct had taken over.

She also wasn’t aware that her ears had started to change shape, or that her wings had started to grow leathery.

She could hear Rarity’s heartbeat.

Badum. Badum. Badum.

Her ear twitched.

She slowly opened her mouth.

She started to move her head down towards the sleeping ponies neck, fangs ready to bite down and drain the creature of her blood.

Rarity mumbled something in her sleep.

“… The gala, applejack… you’d look handsome with it on…”

AppleJack’s brain was fog…

…But a searchlight of mental willpower was suddenly thrust through the haze, the lamp at the tower sitting at the top of the metaphysical lighthouse being one Rarity Belle who seemed to be having a dream about AppleJack.

This was enough to snap her out of it. AppleJack recoiled backwards, her features restoring to their usual Ponylike visage. They remained staring at Rarity, wide eyed. She scuttled as far away as possible from her, setting herself down against the cave walls.

She could feel her breathing quicken, the walls starting to close in as she looked at her quivering hooves. She was in complete disbelief at what she had been about to do.

“What’s happening to me…” she whispered, feeling her wings instinctively wrap around her like a cocoon. She glanced up at the gently rising moon outside, a much more terrifying prospect entering her mind.

“What’s happened to FlutterShy…”

“No.”

“Fluts! Come on, you know I can’t do this!”

“I c-can’t, RainbowDash…”

“Yes you can! You can do it! You have the strength of a thousand ponies right now! You know how buff AppleJack is!”

The pair stood at the doors of a boathouse. Rainbow Dash had tried (and failed) to pick the heavy duty padlock with a hairpin she had found in Rarity's mane, and she was now waiting on Fluttershy to break down the door with AppleJack’s strength.

“B-But it’s not our boathouse…” she mumbled, the huge horse shuffling her hooves in a very peculiar looking way.

“Fluts…” Rainbow Dash came over and gave her a little nudge. “It’s owned by the city guard! And since we are kind of the guard of Equestria, it’s kinda ours, right?”

“True…” said Fluttershy, caving immediately.

“Come on. We can come back and fix it together when we’re back to normal!”

Fluttershy looked down at Rainbow Dash pensively. It felt very strange to have to strain her neck THIS far down.

“… can we also go to the central Manehattan Zoo when we’re here to fix the door?” She asked quietly.

“Uhh, yeah? Of course??“ she said with a grin. “That sounds awesome!”

“Hehe…”

Fluttershy accidentally let out a giggle. Felt like it had been so long since she truly felt like she and her girlfriend were together again.

“Okay, now break us in!”

Fluttershy nodded as she furrowed her brow with determination.

She raised her hoof, and hit the lock with what she thought was a medium amount of force.

The lock shattered and the door flew off its hinges, flying into the boathouse and skidding along the ground until it hit the small boat that was docked there. The area around the door had also been destroyed, and splinters had flown everywhere. Fluttershy’s eye twitched.

“I… wow, Fluts, just meant the lock but… that works too!”

“I was aiming for the lock…” she said meekly.

Carefully, the two misbodied ponies entered in to inspect the boat. It was a medium sized boat with a small magically fuelled motor at the back, some stairs down to the hull as well as a small cabin. Fluttershy frowned. She probably wouldn’t even be able to fit inside the cabin properly.

“Come on!” Rainbowdash said as she excitedly leapt onto the boat, immediately shimmying below deck to get the motor started.

Fluttershy stood there for a good minute, terrified of the water. Usually it was no issue; she would just gently hover above it. But she’d need wings the size of parasols to lift this body off the ground. As well as this she couldn’t swim.

‘You got this!’ She heard Rainbow call out from beneath the deck.

‘You can DO this!’ She reassured herself as she stepped onto the boat. It almost immediately capsized.

“WO-OAH!” Cried Rainbow Dash from below, the sound of many tools and fishing gear getting thrown about. It seemed like she might have hit something else as well because the engine suddenly roared, suddenly pushing the boat into the night.

“WOOOOAOAAAUUUUGGGHHHH!!!” Screeched Fluttershy, who had almost been flung off the boat. She managed to hold on to the cabin with one hoof and onto her hat with the other. “SORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRY” she whimpered, eyes shut tight.

Rainbow Dash bolted upstairs as fast as she could and launched herself inside the cabin. She gave her currently huge girlfriend a kiss on the cheek as she went by.

“YOU’RE ALL GOOD, HUN!“ she reassured, and spun the wheel around as fast as she could. The boat skidded around (fluttershy squealed loudly) the river, narrowly missing crashing into a harbour on the other side.

There were a few shouts coming from the shoreline, but Rainbow Dash could tell that the Manehatten guard was not in any position to actually chase them. She grinned wide upon noticing this, and faced the front again, the view screen almost entirely covered by the now cowering Fluttershy.

‘WAHEYYYY!!!!!” She cried out, as she pushed forward on the speed lever to max. “NEXT STOP!! PONYVILLE!”

“Uhm… RainbowDash… do you… know the way to Ponyville?” Asked Fluttershy anxiously.

“PFFT, no, but it’s fine! How hard can it be? I’ve flown this route hundreds of times!”

“Uhm… yes, Rainbow Dash, but, uhm… you can’t fly…”

Canterlot.

Sunset could hardly believe she was after all this time.

Her and PinkiePie were pulling the caravan through the streets of the Equestrian Capital. Twilight was atop the Caravan, covered in a blanket as she looked on the residents of the city sadly. It seemed to be business as usual in most regards, thankfully. Everypony seemed quite on edge, but most places were still open. There were a few houses that looked abandoned, however, and a few streets entirely cordoned off by the royal guard. A few of them nodded to the passing caravan. Most avoided eye contact.

PinkiePie had initially been smiling at everypony, but most had ignored her or actively avoided eye contact. Her ears flattened back as she drooped her head down.

Twilight had advised that they go straight to the castle, so it wasn’t long before they had arrived at the gates.

Twilight (with Sunset’s assistance) had gotten down from the top, and were walking side by side. She frowned as she saw how tense Sunset looked and gave her a small nudge.

“Don’t worry.” She said supportively. “She’s going to be happy to see you.”

Sunset winded a little. She appreciated how Twilight knew exactly what was wrong.

“It’s been five years…” she muttered. “And the only time I come back is when I’m forced to. Let’s just say I’m not exactly thrilled to bits right now.”

Twilight sighed a tiny bit. She had heard all about her insecurities about seeing Celestia again through their correspondence. Sunset had insisted she had moved on and was happy just living her life at Canterlot high, but Twilight could always sense that the wounds had never truly closed.

As they arrived at the gate, the guards there immediately brandished their horns.

“Hello. I am Sunset Shimmer. This is PinkiePie. And that is Twilight Sparkle.” Sunset said as calmly as she could. Twilight and PinkiePie nodded in confirmation.

The two guards glanced at each other , before the one on the left cast a quick spell. Twilight recognised it as a simple messaging spell.

In a few moments, a slightly unexpected pony appeared in front of them.

Princess Luna had teleported in with swirling shadows following behind her. She looked exhausted.

“L-Luna!” Cried out Twilight with relief, and moved up to hug her, but Luna put her hoof out to stop her.

“Please remain still, One who claims to be Twilight.” She said sternly, and gently closed her eyes. A small pool of dark magical energy came out of her horn, and gently wrapped itself around Twilight, who stood there nervously.

The pool of magic swiftly shifted to surround Sunset. It lasted a little longer and seemed to get more erratic. Sunset glanced over at Twilight nervously.

The pool then shifted over to PinkiePie. It started to shake violently, the liquid like magic starting to stretch towards the caravan. Twilight let out a little gasp. PinkiePie looked nervous, trying to swat away the energy to no avail.

Luna frowned, and dispelled the magic.

“Twilight Sparkle. I am glad to see you safe and well, despite the frail body you inhabit.” She said, smiling and bowing her head to Twilight. Twilight bowed back, Trixie’s misshapen mane flopping over her eyes to which she had to frantically smack it out the way with her hoof. She frowned at seeing her wound. “After we meet with my sister, you shall be going straight to the hospital.”

Twilight nodded.

“And… Sunset Shimmer… we meet at last” she continued, facing the being currently inhabiting the body of Twilight. Sunset felt herself shrink back. There was very little that truly scared her anymore, but the royal sisters were firmly second place on the list.

Number one was something bad happening to her Twilight.

“It’s… Uhmm- it’s an honour.” Mumbled Sunset, bowing her head and avoiding eye contact. It had only just clicked in her mind that she hadn’t actually met Luna before. Not from this world, anyway.

“My sister speaks fondly of you.” She said warmly, but her kind demeanour dropped as she looked at PinkiePie.

“You, however, are not a creature of this world.” She said, picking up PinkiePie with her magic.

“LUNA! We’ve been on like, BAZILLION adventures!” She told her hastily. “I-It’s me! The real Pinkie!”

“Then why did my spell act so erratically? It detects the overwhelming presence of the mirror dimension from you.” She said sternly.

“I-I can explain!” Twilight quickly interjected, having to speak quite quietly due to her wound. “S-She is the real PinkiePie! But she was swapped with a PinkiePie from the mirror pool!” She explained. Luna’s eyes narrowed. “Then where is her original body?”

“She’s inside the cart, tied up and stunned.” Said Sunset.

“I see. Why is that?“

Twilight motioned at her neck wound.

“I see.” Luna nodded with grave understanding. “PinkiePie’s appearance would suggest the creature in having her usual body is a violent one. I will have the guards take the caravan to the dungeon… and I am afraid we will have to have a guard at PinkiePie’s side for the duration of your visit.”

“What!?” Sunset had been on the same wavelength as Luna, but at this insistence she felt herself get a bit fired up. “Princess, no disrespect, but PinkiePie has been through HELL. Literally! We found her in Tartarus!” She said, moving over to stand in front of the still hovering PinkiePie, who’s eyes were already watering.

“That may be true, and this does appear to be the true PinkiePie, but we are unaware of what the mirror entity is capable of.“ she said, spreading her wings out, mane expanding in size slightly.

Sunset growled a little. “So? Me and Twilight will be with her, and I’m an Alicorn right now. Any danger and we’ll squash it. Do you have ANY idea what it was like for her? Being trapped for days all on her own? Thinking that she was going to be stuck there forever with no escape? Have some sympathy for the poor girl!” She said, putting her hoof down. She hated the idea of Pinkie being blamed for some that that wasn’t her fault.

Luna’s eye twitched. Twilight winced. PinkiePie covered her mouth with her hooked hoof in shock.

“Trapped for days, was she?” She said, and dropped the two onto the floor. She towered over Sunset, which immediately reinstalled fear into her.

“I was trapped on the moon for a thousand years, every moment of my existence being a cold, dark misery. I am not making this decision lightly, Sunset Shimmer.” She boomed down at her, darkness spilling out of her eyes.

“B-But… how do you… why would…” sunset Stuttered out.

Luna took a deep breath as she backed off, allowing Sunset to stand up. Twilight’s ears were folded back.

“We have some new information about this mirror entity.” She said calmly again, motioning for one of the guards to move over to PinkiePie. “Some that may change how you feel about the severity of this situation for you, Sunset Shimmer.”

Sunset felt her stomach do a horrible turn. What did that mean?

“Follow me inside. My sister and her host wish to speak.”

Twilight tilted her head. “Her host?”

-

Sunset had her head down as she entered the throne room. She could hear the light hoofsteps of twilight as well as the mismatches clunking of PinkiePie and her guard following along behind her.

She glanced up just long enough to see Luna descend down onto her throne. Celestia sat in her throne, smiling at the ponies as they entered. For a reason unknown to Sunset and the others, Zecora was also there, who was smiling too. Sunset was very aware that all eyes were on her, and so looked back down at the ground.

“Celestia!” Squeaked Twilight as she rushed ahead, giving the Alicorns tight squeeze. “I’m so glad you are ok!”

“It’s good to see you, Twilight Dear, although I am not as I appear.” She said, still smiling down at her as she used her large hoof to gently pet her hair. Twilight looked up in confusion. Why was she speaking like… ohhhh….

Her eyes moved down to the zebra beside her, who nodded. “I am afraid I am a victim of this too, Twilight. Luckily, I could not have hoped for a better host.” She said, revealing to the room that she was, in fact, Celestia.

Zecora bowed her head respectfully, appreciating the compliment.

Twilight moved up to Celestia, and with a nod from Zecora, gave her a right hug. Celestia smiled and hugged back, but her head was very much gravitating towards the smallest Alicorn in the room.

Sunset looked at Celestia, and gave an awkward little wave.

“Sunset Shimmer…” she said, ending the hug. She started to walk towards her, smiling wide.

Sunset felt her heart rate quicken and found herself falling into a sitting position as she approached. She let out a tiny whimper as she stopped a few feet in front of her.

“I am glad to see you again. It has been far, far too long.” She said simply. Sunset nodded, avoiding eye contact again. “Uhm- yeah.” She said, rubbing the back of her neck. Celestia’s smile faded a bit as she saw how apprehensive she was, and decided to instead move on to the matter at hoof.

“As I assume Luna has informed you, we have gathered more information about the creature that has done this.” She said, returning to her throne and sitting by it.

“Firstly, it seems to know about the elements of harmony, so we can assume that it has knowledge of our world. Secondly, we believe that their power extends far beyond simple swapping ponies. Lastly, our working theory is that it was once a pony, likely one with a personal vendetta against the elements.”

Twilight frowned at this as she started running through a list of enemies in her mind. She didn’t have any solid idea of which one it could be just yet.

“Uhm…” Sunset managed to speak up. She still avoided eye contact with everypony.

“May I ask how you learned this new information?”

Celestia smiled, and nodded to a guard.

“I believe that would best be explained by the source.”

A side door opened, and in walked a red and yellow Unicorn. Her back legs had been chained together with a loose fit chain to restrict movement but not to immobilise. Her sides were covered with bandages, as well as one of her back legs.

But that grin on her face made nobody have to guess who it was.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie has got a new haircut…” she said, flicking her twisty orange and yellow mane. Twilight let out a squeak of relief and immediately ran at her. She hugged her tight, compartmentalising her affection for the body she was in.

“You’re ok…” she whimpered.

“Twilight, did you really think being sent to a parallel universe and turned into a weird flesh monster was going to stop me from coming back to infuriate you?” She said, her smile genuine. She winced a bit at the wound she saw on her own body’s neck. “And I’m… glad you survived. Mostly for my own body’s sake, of course! But I suppose you being okay too is fine. I guess.”

Trixie looked up to see Sunset standing right infront of her. Twilight’s ears flattened and she shrank away, leaving the two ponies to stare at each other.

Sunset looked her up and down. It was a strange sensation looking at oneself like this. It was made even more peculiar for sunset as it had been quite a while since she had actually seen herself as a pony.

But, to be honest, she was more concerned about all of the bandages that were surrounding her body.

“Ah! Sunset Shimmer, was it! Hello! I am Trixie, the great and powerful! A pleasure to meet you, and for you, an honour to meet me! Your body is lovely, by the way! Wouldn’t mind being in it more~”

Sunset could feel that usual tense feeling start to fill her body upon hearing her voice being so boastful. She did her best to stay calm, even when she made that strange comment.

“What, prey tell, did you do with my body to fuck it up this much?” She asked. She could sense Twilight fidgeting beside her.

“Well! To explain that, I’ll have to tell you…” she said before pausing suddenly. Sunset’s eyes narrowed at the hesitation.

“I… Well, I met your date! Lovely girl, takes after my wife, haha” she said awkwardly, glancing at Twilight.

Twilight just glared.

Sunset’s eye twitched, her body growing more tense by the moment.

“And, well… When I told her that I was not her big sweaty guardian alpha date and was, in fact, Trixie, she was oddly determined to come through the portal with me to save you! That’s a dedicated girl you’ve got there! She even accidentally called you her girlfriend!”

Without blinking, Sunset moved closer to Trixie. She could feel the cola bottle that was her temper being shaken up with the force of an earthquake.

“Where is she?” She asked.

“Well…” Trixie said awkwardly.

Sunset slammed her hoof down, accidentally cracking the tile she was standing above, her wings spreading out as wide as they would go.

“Where is my Twilight.”

Luna stood up to intervene but was halted by Celestia’s stripy foreleg. “Let this play out, sister…” she muttered to her.

Trixie had shrunk back, her smile growing much more anxious. “W-Well, she… when we travelled through the portal, the c-creature in the mirror… she… T-took her. A-And cast me aside, smashing me through a mirror in the castle. Hence the bandages.”

The bandages on her usual body were the least of her concerns.

Twilight. Her Twilight.

She had been taken.

Sunset was her protector. She wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.

She failed.

Sparks flew out of her horn as she remained motionless, breathing in and out through her nose as deeply as her Alicorn lungs would take. Twilight carefully placed a shaking hoof on her shoulder, but Sunset batted it away with her wing.

“Why didn’t you protect her.” She growled, and without realising it, started to levitate Trixie up into the air.

“I-I tried my best! I r-really did! But that thing, it was too f-fast for me!”

“Then you didn’t try hard enough.” She said, and started to compress the magic around Trixie. She had managed to restrain herself enough to not outright crush her, but she was dangerously close. Trixie started clutching her throat.

“That is enough, Sunset Shimmer.” Said Luna sternly, moving past Celestia. “Release her.”

Sunset had tunnel vision. Her hair had started to levitate slightly as she tried her very best not to lose control. Luna’s horn started glowing as she prepared a spell.

“She… Told m-me to tell you she… she loves you-“ Trixie managed to splutter out.

Sunset felt like she had just been hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer as she exhaled all of the built up tension in her body.

She felt a thousand emotions all rush towards her at once as she stumbled backwards, dropping Trixie to the floor. Luna kept her spell prepared, but did not grow closer.

“Sunset?” Said Twilight, but her voice was drowned out by the ringing in sunsets ears.

Too much.

This was too much.

She turned around and ran.

Trixie stayed on the floor as she watched her leave, frowning sadly. Twilight was in two minds about calling for her to stop, but by the time she had decided to do it, sunset had already escaped the room.

A horrible silence had filled the chamber.

Sunset ran. She didn’t know where she was running. She just ran.

She eventually reached a balcony where she leapt off, wings spread wide, gliding. She spun around in different directions in the air as she looked for a place to be alone. Everywhere was too crowded. Eventually, she spotted something in the gardens. The same hollowed out tree she had used as a secret den whilst still a student of Celestia. She would stay there for hours, creating and planning all the amazing things she would do when she became an Alicorn.

She didn’t think anypony knew about it, so it would have to do.

She landed messily, her hooves scraping along the grass and leaving quite a large mud trail. That was going to make a poor canterlot gardener's day significantly worse. She ran towards the tree and slid inside. Or, she tried. Sunset’s regular body could just about squeeze into the hole. Twilight’s body was a little smaller than Sunset, even as an Alicorn, but she did have one thing that blocked her entry.

Her wings.

Sunset fell down backwards, wings spreading out involuntarily. The sun was setting behind her, showing her winged silhouette against the tree.

She was an Alicorn.

Through the gap in the tree, she could see some of her scribbled drawings scattered around, curled by the passage of time. One big one remained, however. Pinned to the back wall of the tree was a huge diagram she had drawn of herself as an Alicorn, detailing how ‘epic and cool’ it would be when she had wings. Below her she had drawn an adoring crowd cheering up at her. The one thing she hadn’t drawn was anypony with her.

She may have desired this before, she didn’t want this anymore.

Fate had a strange way of giving you just what you want at completely the wrong moment.

She could feel frustration rapidly bubble up to the surface again. With a loud roar of anger, Sunset finally sliced the top off the shaken up bottle of fizzy drink that had been her emotions. A huge magical orb blasted out of her horn, and where the old tree had been rooted was now but a smouldering crater. Branches and sticks flew everywhere as well as scraps of paper. One landed directing in front of her.

A crude drawing of her standing with Celestia, both as Alicorns, embracing, as an arrow pointing to herself read ‘Best Daughter EVER.’

It was that which finally broke her down. She slammed her hoof down into the floor in frustration onto the drawing, leaving a muddy hoof print, and flopped over onto her side, curling up into a tight ball with her wings spread out behind her.

She had finally escaped her past back home. Sure, everybody knew what she’d done, but they had forgiven her. She had someone to love and someone who (apparently) loved her too. It now seemed like she might never see her again, except seeing her almost identical likeness in the body she was in now. What’s worse is that reaching her ascendant dream was just reminding her of how truly awful she had been to everyone and everypony around her when she was chasing it.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t have the capacity right now. She just lay there on the ground, shivering, the dysphoria of being in the wrong body finally properly setting in.

She didn’t know how long she lay there on the floor for. She sensed royal guards approaching a few times. Every time they did, she would make her horn spark and crackle menacingly. It seemed to make them go away.

Eventually, however, one of them didn’t go away. The soft hoof steps kept on approaching.

“Sunset Shimmer…”

She didn’t immediately recognise the voice, so assumed it was just some guard.

“Fuck off.” She growled, horn sparking rapidly.

“No. I don’t I will, as you so delicately put it, ‘Fuck Off’.’ The voice responded, sounding quite amused. Who even was that?

Sunset opened her eyes.

It was that strange Zebra from the throne room.

The cogs whirred.

Celestia.

Celestia laughed at the sudden realisation on Sunset's face as the Alicorn scrambled up into her hooves.

“Sorry! I-I’m so sorry! I didn’t realise it was you, I’m so sorry I’ll go sorry I’m sorry about the tree I didn’t mean to blow it up it’s ok I’ll-“ she started to scramble together a sentence but was stopped as Celestia placed a hoof on her shoulder, which silenced her immediately.

“Breathe, Sunset”, She said calmly, “You are not in any trouble.”

Sunset nodded very quickly, taking in big deep breaths as the repressed tears from earlier all started to fall out.

“It is a shame that this reunion that I have been hoping on for years had to occur under such unusual circumstances…” Celestia said softly. “But it is so, so good to see you, Sunset.”

Sunset wiped her tears away with a hoof, sitting down. Celestia sat down next to her.

“I’m s-sorry I never came back.” She mumbled. Celestia just smiled.

“May I ask why?”

Sunset let out a little whimper, turning her head away. “I was sure you’d still be angry with me… Even more so thanks to my stupid stunt with Twilight’s crown.”

Celestia remained silent. The tension this created compelled Sunset to keep on talking.

“And even though I know Twilight would have put in a good word for me, I still didn’t want to come back, even if you had forgiven me. It was far easier to pretend that you just didn’t exist and that if I just ignored it, the problem would go away…” she said, looking at her unfamiliar purple hooves. Something clicked in her mind..

“... A-And I guess I…” she said, finally looking at Celestia. “I guess I couldn't stand the idea of having to see somepony else being at your side as your pupil.”

Celestia’s smile faded a little as she said this. She tilted her head a little in thought, then looked down at the ground herself.

“I did not ever consider the effect that it might have had on you…” she said quietly. Sunset’s stomach dropped; she had just made HER feel bad now. Celestia restored her resolve and looked at Sunset.

“I assure you, Sunset, that if you ever want to return here in your usual body, you will be forever welcome to be my student. I never, ever stopped caring about you, and I never will. No matter what happens” she said with certainty. “No matter what happens. Do you understand?”

Sunset stayed quiet. She shuffled a bit at her reaffirmation of affection and she appreciated the offer, of course. But…

“I don’t want that.” she said. Celestia raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t want… this.” she said, motioning back to her wings. “Before, all I ever wanted was to be an alicorn… but I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I was doing it for myself, nopony else. Except maybe you. I just wanted your approval, and didn’t even realise that I already had it and… well, you saw what happened then. And now that I have them, everything is worse. The… person that I love has been taken by some sort of demon and everypony is going to be relying on me to make this all better. But I’m not really a pony, Celestia. I’m a person. I don’t fit here anymore. Of course, I’ll never forget all you did for me and how much your Twilight has helped me, and everything else… but my place is at Canterlot high. That’s where I’ve finally found a place to belong. Besides, I’ve made so many ponies AND people upset over the years and caused so much pain and suffering.. I don’t deserve these wings… and I certainly don’t deserve to be your student again.”

There was a long pause in the conversation as Sunset looked off in the other direction, purposefully ignoring whatever Celestia’s expression may tell her.

Eventually, Celestia spoke. Sunset was surprised to hear her voice sound somewhat teary.

“Sunset… you have no idea how proud of you I am…” she whispered. Sunset was surprised as she felt herself pulled into a tight hug.

“P-Proud?” She spluttered.

“You’ve learned the lesson I could never seem to teach you all by yourself… humility and empathy” Celestia said, wiping a tear from her unfamiliar eye.

“I…” Sunset said quietly, unsure how to respond. She thought about it a little. She had learnt those things… sure, the Twilights and her Canterlot friends had helped, but she had done a lot of that all on her own.

“You don’t have to come back after all this. But I would love you to come and visit sometimes.” Celestia concluded, moving away from the hug and dusting herself down a little. “As for being a student… I don’t think there’s anything else for you to learn… But the offer stands.”

Sunset felt a little shiver go up her back, and she felt a little smile creeping onto her mouth.

“I am going to leave you for now… Twilight and I are formulating a plan to rescue the Twilight from your world with help from the…” she gave out a little sigh. “The pony currently in your body.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “How bad is she being?”

“Oh Sunset, you have no idea.”

Sunset let out a laugh. “Just make sure she doesn’t mess up my body anymore than she already has.”

Celestia nodded, gave Sunset a small reassuring pat on the back, then made her way back to the castle.

Sunset was left sitting on her own once more in an unfamiliar body in an exceptionally strange set of circumstances. Despite the lack of her Twilight… this was the most whole she had felt in quite some time.

Hell.

There was no other way to describe it.

AppleJack hadn’t slept at all. Every time that she felt herself start to doze off, she shook herself back awake. She didn’t trust her body anymore since she almost bit Rarity.

She had only said mumbled greetings to Rarity in the morning, insisting she was just worried about the situation. She refused to let Rarity know what was happening. Yes, honesty was important, but to be honest about this would mean being honest about a lot of other things that she really wasn’t ready to be honest about.

So here they were, walking along in an awkward silence. The path back to the crystal empire was a simple road with a few small woods clumped together. Everything was pretty icy, but they had been lucky with the weather; the blizzard that had kept them trapped had now passed.

AppleJack’s yellow wings were locked to her side, refusing to move no matter how hard she tried. Rarity kept on nudging her, asking if she was ok. She lied and said she was fine.

She lied.

AppleJack was angry at herself for doing so.

Her legs kept on shaking as they walked, and every now and again she would glance over at Rarity, her neck looking ever so enticing. It took all of her mental fortitude to keep her eyes forward on the road ahead, the huge spires of the Crystal empire sparkling in the distance.

But they wouldn’t make it there.

Applejack’s ears were constantly flicking, feeling hypersensitive and picking up every little noise. She swore she could hear Rarity’s heartbeat (which was NOT helping.) Luckily for her, it also allowed her to hear the hoof steps that had started to surround them.

“Rares…” she said, her voice quivering from her cravings, as her ears flicked upwards. Her eyes move left to right, scanning the area around them as if she was looking for timber wolves back on the farm. She couldn’t see anypony… but she could hear them.

“What is it, dear?” Asked Rarity with concern. She knew AJ all too well. She had tried her best not to push Applejack upon what was bothering her. She trusted AJ enough to know that if it was urgent, she would immediately be informed.

Or so she thought.

“P-Ponies… ambush…” she managed to get out, her eyes drawn to a patch of woodland just to their right. Her eyes narrowed, and without even thinking about it, made a few high pitched clicking noises. Rarity tilted her head.

AppleJack shut her eyes and has the strange sensation of being able to see through her ears. If anypony had asked her, that’s the only way she could describe it. She could visualise the outline of a pegasus hidden in the tree… slowly drawing a crossbow-

Click.

Before she could even understand what her body was reacting to, AppleJack had suddenly shot over to Rarity, pushing her out of the way of the crossbow bolt that would have lodged itself into Rarity’s hoof.

Rarity was completely taken aback as she was pushed. She went flying with considerably more force than she thought Fluttershy’s frail was capable of.

They landed with AppleJack on top of Rarity, hooves either side of her. Her eyes had turned a deep scarlet red and there seemed to be something primal surging through the yellow pegasi’s body. AppleJack was breathing very heavily, mouth wide open as she did. Rarity could clearly see her fangs now, which seemed to be elongating by the moment.

“A-AppleJack?” She managed to squeak out.
AppleJack’s eyes softened a little, her senses returning, and she tried to get words out.

“R… you… need to…” she said, holding her head with her hoof. “G-Get away…”

Rarity tilted her head in confusion, before letting out a cry. She pushed AppleJack away and leapt out of the way as a brown unicorn brandishing a hatched leapt down from the tree above.

“B-BANDITS!” Cried out Rarity, before growling with determination.

“Okay RainbowDash… I hope all your boasting isn’t just for show!“ she said, and leapt towards the unicorn, brandishing her wings behind her as her hooves collided with the Pony’s head. The speed at which she had suddenly moved towards the unicorn meant her blow did considerable damage, the unicorn stumbling back onto the ground. The unicorn let out a cry as she scraped her leg. As she stood up, a small trickle of blood was seeping from her leg.

Applejack had just gotten to her hooves when she smelt it. Almost immediately, her eyes were fixated on the unicorn.

It was there.

She could see it.

Blood.

The gaping pit in her stomach seemed to deepen into a bottomless pit as any semblance of AppleJack’s mind vanished, as if it were never there.

Only two things in the world existed.

The blood.

And AppleJack.

Letting out a screech, AppleJack was on the unicorn, fangs bared. Before the Unicorn could even react, Applejack had sunk her teeth deep into her neck. The Unicorn didn’t have a chance to scream as Applejack had lost any semblance of restraint. Rarity watched on in horror as Applejack tore the unicorn's throat out and smashing down on her ribcage with unnatural strength. A few more various masked ponies had descended from the trees, but all were too shocked to move any closer.

As the blood entered AppleJack’s body, her transformation began. In moments her form had changed to a Batpony. Her ears were pointed and jagged, wings leathery, fangs long and colours muted as she continued to feed on the dead Unicorn.

Rarity had scooted back against a tree, staring with wide horrified eyes as she watched the body of fluttershy brutalise the corpse. Hyperventilating, she tried to call out ‘AppleJack?, but no sound came out of her mouth.

One of the ponies broke and shot another crossbow bolt at AppleJack. Her ear shot up and she catapulted herself into the air with her hind legs, diving over the bolt and then shooting down towards the pony who fired it (an orange earth pony). Her wings unfurled and she swooped down on him, knocking him down onto the ground. He let out a single cry before a similar fate befell him, the fangs sinking down into him doing irreparable damage.

The few other bandits all started to run, one of them sending up a red flare spell, but one made the mistake of looking behind her. She was stopped dead in her tracks as those crimson eyes bored into her. Rarity recognised it as Fluttershy’s usual stare, but it somehow seemed even more powerful than before. AppleJack let out a low hiss, and the fleeing pony found herself slowly walking towards her, mouth open in a weird state of shock. As she got close enough, she stood still, unable to break eye contact with the Batpony. Applejack stalked closer like a hunter, and in a snake strike lashed her head forward, striking down on her neck and started to drain her blood. She still seemed paralysed.

Rarity stumbled to her hooves, her brain fizzing with panic. She didn’t know what had happened to AppleJack, but she couldn’t let it continue. Even if these ponies intended to per chance murder them, they didn’t deserve… whatever it was that was happening to them.

“G-Get off of her!” She finally managed to cry out. The batpony didn’t respond. She could see life draining from the pony’s eyes. She had to ACT.

She ran forward, and shoved into them both. RainbowDash’s body had enough athletic strength to push them both onto the ground. AppleJack unclamped from the pony (whose head fell to the floor), and changed her gaze to Rarity who didn’t react fast enough as she was suddenly tackled to the floor, pinned down against the rough ground.

“A-AppleJack!” Rarity cried out, struggling against the yellow batpony above her. In the creature’s crimson gaze there was a candlelight of recognition. But it didn’t seem to be enough.

As her fangs extended, AppleJack leant her head down and bit into the exposed neck of Rarity.

Rarity let out a cry, but almost immediately, her mind went foggy as she felt her body almost immediately relax. With one last gasp, she managed to splutter out:

“My Beloved…”

And slipped out of consciousness.

-

Something awoke inside of AppleJack as she heard Rarity speak, the batpony suddenly jerking away from Rarity’s neck.

To be more accurate, AppleJack returned into a state of consciousness.

The last thing she knew, she had just pushed Rarity onto the ground.

And now she was surrounded by corpses.

Her mind was still fuzzy, but she looked around in horror at the brutal wounds on the ponies that had attacked them. She coughed a little, specks of blood splashing out onto Rarity below her…

Oh fuck.

She looked down and let out a mangled cry of pained shock. Rarity lay there, her breathing very laboured, with two puncture wounds on her neck.

She felt her fangs… they were still sharp but had receded.

It was only then she realised her hooves were covered in blood.

The smell… the sight… the feeling of… fullness…

AppleJack took one last look at Rarity on the floor… and passed out.

The pair lay in a pool of blood, distant hoof steps approaching, their names becoming intertwined as they both lay motionless on the ground.

Author's Note

Thank you all so much for your patience with this one! I could feel myself starting to get a bit burnt out so i'm glad I took my time with this one!

Let me know what you thought down below <3