Dusk Shine Rising, Ch3
Hoofs on practice.

Twilight didn’t mind making mistakes, much. If you never made a mistake you were not pushing yourself hard enough. Or so Princess Celestia had told her a very long time ago. A saying she had good cause to be reminded of ever since she came to Ponyville. Over the last year, she had made lots and lots of mistakes, some of which made her cringe in remembrance, but every one of them had turned into a valuable learning experience.

Foolish mistakes caused by complacency and overconfidence on the other hand were unforgivable as far as she was concerned. And she’d made two big ones in the last twenty-four hours, three if you counted all the new equipment she’d acquired for the project.

The second, and more of a minor error, was not realizing she’d slipped into REM sleep during her restless night. It had not been for long, but unfortunately it had been just long enough to allow the Poison Joke potion to activate. She had been well punished for that mistake when she’d tried to use her magic to yank off her new body part while half asleep. It was also the reason why, as soon as she took care of a certain high-pressure situation, she would be annotating her morning check-list to include, right at the top, G.C. for gender check.

Her most foolish mistake, however, was thinking that she could use Poison Joke as a shortcut in her potion making. Theoretically, there should have been no problem for a brilliant alchemist like herself to remove the joke component of the herb and leave only the transformation aspect, but practical experience had proved otherwise.

The proof of her hubris was right in front of her.

So much for brilliance. To top this, I'll have to see if I can make a one-sided coin. Twilight thought as she looked at herself in the full length mirror she’d dragged down to the lab.

As she... no, he. He had to stop thinking of himself as female, at least till she… he, reversed the transformation. As Twilight looked at himself in the mirror he had to admit that in that regard at least the potion had worked perfectly. There was not an iota of femininity visible in his reflection. The image in front of him was of a perfectly proportioned stallion who could have stepped right off the pages of a Restoration of Equestria novel, or one of Rarity’s romance novels. That was the problem. It was too perfect. No stallion was that uniform and without flaw. The only thing not perfectly proportioned was the oversized male member that had replaced the neat little slit that had been her vagina. It was, to Twilight’s eyes, freakishly large. Which is what caused him to think of the Restoration stories. In fact, as far as he was concerned, the entirety of the image was a caricature of a handsome male. He could only conclude that the Poison Joke must have plucked it from his mind as the epitome of a virile male stereotype. An idea that had been formed at least in part from his exposure to the Restoration novels and the lurid covers of Rarity’s books.

When Twilight had taken the potion she had imagined herself turning into a male version of herself, what her male twin might have looked like if she’d ever had one. She had been imagining the results of her experiment as looking scholarly, maybe a bit nerdy, not fat, but not over endowed with muscles. He would have been the sort of pony who would vanish into a crowd of two. Somepony who was totally unremarkable in appearance. He had certainly never intended to turn into this calendar model he thought as he ran a hand over the rock hard pecs that had replaced her rather modest B-cup sized breasts.

There was no way Twilight was ever going to be able to show off this transformation to any other pony. They’d think he’d ended up like this on purpose. That thought forced him to face the fact that for all his denials to the contrary that he had no intention of letting anypony see this transformation, a part of him had rather hoped he’d be discovered and get to bask in the admiration that came from pulling off such a tricky transformation. Well, that was never going to happen now. No pony other than himself was ever going to set eyes on this embarrassment of a body.

Twilight shifted so he was standing at an angle to the mirror and arched his tail so he could check out his posterior, purely in the name of science. He had to see if the rear view was as over the top as the front. It was. He had an ass you could bounce boulders off of, or least medium sized stones. He clenched his ass cheeks and winced at the dimples. Oh, this was so over the top, he thought as he flicked his tail from side to side in agitation. Shifting his gaze upward he spread his wings and saw that like the rest of his body they were ridiculously over the top. They were at least twice as big as those sported by his more petite female body. They were without flaw and without a feather out of place. So unlike his usual wings that tended to look like feather dusters first thing in the morning. The same size differential applied to his horn. It was not only longer and thicker but had an almost lethal looking sharpness to the tip when compared to the more dainty round-tipped horn he was used to seeing in the mirror.

In fact, the only thing detracting from the absurd hotness of the figure in the mirror was the fact that Twilight had begun doing the potty dance as his horrified fascination at what he had turned into warred with his need to empty his bladder. Well, it wasn’t just the image in the mirror that was keeping him from the bathroom. There was also the little issue of having to deal with his new plumbing when he did so.

At last the need to relieve himself proved greater than his trepidation at doing the deed in a male body and Twilight turned away from the mirror and headed for the bathroom. Preoccupied as he was with his new plumbing, Twilight didn’t notice the figure watching from the top of the stairs.

Pinkie Pie stared down into Twilight’s lab, her chin in the vicinity of her cleavage. She lifted a hand and with one finger pushed her chin back into place. Eyes focused on the closed bathroom door Twilight had just vanished behind she asked herself, “Did I see what I think I saw? Cause if I saw what I think I saw it would be the most wondrous, splendiferous, thing ever.”

Pinkie had been feeling a bit down. Her attempts at convincing a stallion to play Restoration of Equestria was standing at three strikes. It was enough to make a pony doubt herself. If she wasn’t Pinkie. Pinkie didn’t doubt. She knew she’d solve this, she just had to try harder.
Pinkie already had an idea of what her problem was. She was having a hard time working up the proper enthusiasm for her role in the game. When it came to scary games she much preferred being the chicken. She wasn’t very good at playing the chicken hawk. That was why she’d come to visit Twilight. She’d been hopeful of finding some reference material to fill in some of the blanks Berry Punch’s drunken rambling had left in her explanation, and maybe motivate her to get into her role more. Prior to that she’d been wishing there was someway she could take the stallion role, just so she could get a feel for their motivation.

The last thing she’d expected to find was the solution to both her quests. It was a foregone conclusion that Twilight would be happy to help her locate the reference material she needed. But considering Twilight’s current gender, he would be able to help Pinkie with her other goal. Twilight was a mare in a stallion’s body. So he wasn’t going to want to be the mare in the game. He be happy to let Pinkie take that role.

Now all she had to do was convince Twilight to play, and that could be hard. While Twilight was a real party animal once she got started, getting her started could be a bit of a chore at times. Pinkie would have to play her cards close to her chest.

The idea of wondering why Twilight was currently a stallion never entered Pinkie’s mind.

Twenty minutes later Twilight exited the bathroom while stripping a pair of rubber gloves off his hands. He really should have chosen to sit. But this might have been his only chance to try urinating while standing. Considering how often their adventures took them on trips where the only bathroom was the other side of a bush it was a skill he’d often wished he possessed. Even Rainbow Dash and Applejack were in agreement on the topic. Both agreeing that the only thing a stallion could do better than a mare was pee standing up.

They hadn’t mentioned the difficulty in mastering your aim.

Twilight now had a new appreciation with her mother’s obsession with the toilet seat being raised by the males of the family.

At this point Twilight really should have started working on the numerous checklists he had created to maximize his productivity over the next two days. This was supposed to be his chance to do a comprehensive analysis of the difference between mares and stallions. That wasn’t going to happen. The Poison Joke had made sure of that. Any results he got would be invalid due to the fact that his male body was not a true representation of what he would have been like if he’d been born male. He might just as well turn back into a female. There wasn’t any point in continuing this farce.

Twilight sat down in front of his lab bench and scowled at the neatly organized checklists. “What a total waste of time.”

“Tell me about it,” Pinkie said as she lifted a huge glass and chugged the chocolate milkshake it contained and then slammed the empty down on Twilight’s lab bench with a gasp. The normally perky party pony was looking anything but. Her mane was limp and bedraggled and her face wore an unaccustomed woebegone expression.

Twilight gave a gasp and spun to face Pinkie, while at the same time hitching himself forward so his belly was pressed against the lab bench. While this hid the most obvious proof of his changed gender, it really wasn’t likely to do much good considering pecs had replaced breasts on his now much broader chest. He darted a resentful look toward the bench that contained his checklists. One of which was the keep out Pinkie list, a twenty six point list covering all conceivable ways Pinkie could possibly come into the lab, and which Twilight had neutralized. Now not only did he need to add a twenty-seventh, he had to figure out what it was. That was going to require a truly large check list that detailed all possible means and ways Pinkie might have used.

Despite being disgruntled at having his secret blown so soon, Pinkie’s obvious distress caused Twilight to forget his personal issues and humiliation out of concern for his friend. There was one other source distracting him from his embarrassment. One that his male side seemed particularly vulnerable to. It was the little matter of how Pinkie was dressed. Tight leather straps that framed and supported her bare breasts trailing down in a crisscross pattern below the level of the bench. Leaning slightly to the side Twilight could see that the straps continued their weaving till they cinched around Pinkie’s firm thighs, framing a small triangle of tight leather that clung to the pink pony’s sex as if it had been painted on.

Twilight was used to seeing Pinkie nude. Indeed, of Twilight’s five closest friends Pinkie was the one most likely to shed her clothing for no discernable reason. Rainbow Dash on the other hand preferred to fly in the nude, but in general gave into peer pressure and wore clothes where it was considered appropriate, such as the middle of town or the city.

Pinkie had stripped down in the middle of the Grand Galloping Gala, before diving mouth first into the punch fountain.

With the exception of her hat Applejack only wore clothing for practical reasons, and often stripped down to the buff at the end of a hard days work. On more than one occasion Twilight had seen a string of clothing lying on the ground from the fields to the barn. Mind you, the way Applejack worked that meant she spent a lot more time clothed than otherwise.

Pinkie didn’t seem to make much distinction between work and leisure. They were pretty much the same thing to her and Twilight had seen her working in the bakery wearing nothing but a hair net on more than one occasion. Twilight’s cock gave a twitch as his mind called up images of a nude, and sweaty Pinkie covered in a dusting of flour and drips and drabs of frosting and batter.

Twilight hastily dismissed that image and continued his thoughts.

Fluttershy rarely appeared in public nude, she was one of the few country ponies Twilight knew who used a swimsuit. Outside of visits to the spa with Rarity the shy pony never appeared nude in front of strangers. Even in the spa she often went from location to location with a towel wrapped around her body. But Twilight knew that Fluttershy had a tendency to shed clothing in the privacy of her own home, or when wandering in the woods with her furry and feathered friends.

Pinkie had zero inhibitions about appearing in the nude in public. Reference the Grand Galloping Gala.

Of all of Twilight’s friends Rarity was the only one who consistently wore clothing, even when swimming or in private. But Twilight was pretty sure the dress maven’s motivation had a lot more to do with accessorizing her already spectacular good looks than from any inclination toward modesty. Twilight had often seen her changing dresses at a fashion show in the midst of a crowd that contained almost as many stallions as mares. And some of the outfits that Rarity wore at those shows were more scandalous than if she had remained nude. Mind you, those particular stallions were in general more into the dresses Rarity was changing into and out of than what was under them.

Twilight had thought that no one could beat Rarity for bravery when it came to wearing extreme clothing. But even Rarity was not daring enough to show up in public in the outfit Pinkie was currently wearing. Or was she? For some reason Twilight suddenly found his mind filled with images of not just Rarity wearing Pinkie’s outfit, but all of his friends in variations of it. In Twilight’s imagination, Applejack looked particularly fetching in a full body harness similar, but different, to the one she wore when plowing the fields.

That particular image caused Twilight to remember that according to his long ago research on the subject a great deal of fetish wear had evolved from various earth pony harnesses. Who knows what potential resided in Applejack’s tack room. He couldn’t help but try to figure out what practical bit of harness had inspired Pinkie’s outfit.

Much to Twilight’s horror, below the tabletop, the beast he had so painfully strangled into submission just a little while before now showed evidence of making a full revival to its previous tumescent state. It was hidden under the table out of his, and Pinkie’s sight, but he could feel it swelling and twisting between his legs. He tried to will it into submission. But merely thinking about it only seemed to hasten its growth. He hastily banished all thoughts of well-harnessed mares from his mind, or tried to. One glance at Pinkie’s getup caused his new male nature to stampede through the mental wall he was trying to build.

Desperate for a distraction Twilight focused on Pinkie’s despondent behavior, and found genuine concern for his friend instantly banished certain other images from his mind. He even ignored the fact that he wasn’t currently his proper gender and leaned forward to draw Pinkie into a hug. “What’s the matter Pinkie Pie?” he asked in concern. From this close up he could make out the faint traces that tears running down Pinkie’s cheeks had left. Not even the feel of Pinkie’s breasts pressing against his arm could distract him after that.

“I’m a big fat, fakey fake failure,” Pinkie wailed, turning slightly so she could bury her head in Twilight’s mane while hugging him tightly. Oooohhhh, Guy type Twilight is so strong and stallioney, Pinkie thought to herself, congratulating herself on the visit to the kitchen for some sliced onions.

Doing his best to ignore the strange feelings he was having as a result of Pinkie’s hug, Twilight said firmly, “You a failure? I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it. Tell me what the problem is.”

“No stallion will let me pump him in the pooper,” Pinkie wailed.

Twilight’s expression went flat, his mind trying desperately to process the words Pinkie had just said and make sense of them. He couldn’t have heard what he had heard. The Poison Joke must have affected his mind as much as his body. Or maybe his hearing had been scrambled?

With her face still buried in Twilight’s mane Pinkie continued, “First it was Clod Kicker. Then it was Straight Furrow, and finally, Dirty Dick. Everypony of them were all eager when I mentioned we were going to play Restoration of Equestria. But as soon as I tried to start the game, they all ran off. Maybe my pooper packer was too small?” Pinkie finished in a questioning tone that wasn’t entirely related to the topic she was discussing. While Pinkie had been talking she had pulled back from Twilight with a puzzled look on her face and was now poking at his chest with a finger. Slowly a puzzled expression replaced the one of dejection on her face. “Gosh, Twilight. Have you been working out? You’re a lot more musculy than I remember.”

Twilight tried to think how to explain, but was distracted by the way Pinkie Pie was running her hands over his chest, and he jumped a little in his seat when she rolled the little nipples that had replaced the much more generous ones of his female form between her fingers.

“Wow, is this part of being a princess? You go flat?” Pinkie asked. But then she frowned and said, “That can’t be right. Princess Luna and Princess Celestia sure aren’t.” To illustrate her point Pinkie cupped her hands a couple inches in front of her own generous bosom.

Freed from the distraction of Pinkie’s hands wandering over his chest Twilight scooted his chair slightly to the side and to distract Pinkie from himself, and because he actually wanted to know, he asked, a tad desperately, “What’s this about playing Restoration of Equestria, Pinkie?”

Pinkie’s mane, which had begun to go lank again, curled up as tightly as ever as her expression shifted. “Oh, it’s a fun, fun game. Stallion’s tie up poor helpless mares and do all sorts of awful things to them.”

“And this is fun?” Twilight asked in disbelief, looking at Pinkie in a whole new light.

“Oh, sure. It’s so fun to be scared and frightened. It’s like Nightmare Night anytime you want, not just one night of the year. And just like Nightmare Night, we have to give the monster something sweet so he won’t devour us.” Pinkie looked from side to side, and then leaned in to whisper in Twilight’s ear in a conspiratorial tone. “Only it’s not candy we offer him.”

“I sort of figured,” he said in a voice that was more than a little husky.

Twilight had to swallow to clear his mouth of saliva in order to continue talking. When Pinkie had leaned in her breasts had pressed against his bare chest, and her soft husky voice in his ear had sent a shiver down his spine. His body felt hot and he was sweating all out of proportion to the temperature. He wished he could claim he had a fever coming on rather than what was actually happening. He’d felt this exact same set of symptoms to a lesser degree before when he’d visited that strange world of humans and had interacted with the Flash Sentry of that world. His mind, not used to dealing with a strange body had been helpless in fighting off the instinctive hormonal urges that were hard-wired into that form. The same thing was now happening with this one. Even worse, he feared the symptoms were even greater because this body was a warped parody caused by the Poison Joke. He had to remember that this was Pinkie Pie, his good friend, and that it was totally inappropriate to have such urges toward her, no matter how lush and tempting she was in her current attire.

The images Pinkie’s words called up in his mind did not help matters in the least. He could all too easily imagine her in one of the situations from the Restoration of Equestria books, with him the stallion in control.

Twilight’s eyes suddenly widened in horror. Not at his own imaginings. None of that was ever going to happen. Dreams were not reality as Luna had told him when they had discussed nightmares and dark dreams. No, his sudden horror as he finally understood what Pinkie had been doing. The thought of Pinkie putting herself at the mercy of some sex-starved stallion from some misguided attempt at making him happy caused his stomach to clench in dread at the possible consequences. Pinkie had been talking about ways of cheering up grumpy stallions for weeks, but Twilight had never imagined she’d go this far. From her descriptions at the time Twilight realized that the stallions in question fell right into the target demographic of the Restoration books. A connection she had not really taken into account at the time. They would only see the innocent Pinkie Pie as an object to vent their lust, and maybe even their frustration and anger. And if she’d allowed herself to be secured like the mares in those books there would be no escape for her. That thought was better than a dozen buckets of ice-cold water for cooling his heated body and thoughts.

“Pinkie!” he said urgently. “Tell me you’re not trying to get the stallion’s to tie you up and do awful terrible things to you!”

“Pffftt, I wish,” Pinkie said in a depressed tone. “That would be ever so much more fun than the type of games Berry Punch says they want to play.”

Twilight opened up her mouth with the intent of telling Pinkie that such games would be anything but fun for her, but then realized that Pinkie had just said she wasn’t playing those games. So what games was she playing? A question she put into words. “What games did Berry Punch say the stallion’s wanted to play?”

Pinkie looked depressed as she said, “Berry Punch said there are lots of stallions who think mares have it best. They want to be treated just likes mares. And she showed me the restoration stories to explain the sort of things those stallions think mares get. So I tried to give them what they want. I really, really, really, tried. But no matter what I did they just ran away. I suck!”

Twilight could not help but wonder how drunk, and/or, annoyed Berry Punch had been when she explained this to Pinkie Pie. That could wait for another day, however. Right now he had a friend in distress to care for. Plus, Pinkie Pie had pushed his lecture mode button. Without giving any thought to the idea that it might just be best to leave things as they were, he said, “Oh, Pinkie Pie, that’s so silly. You’re the best at what you do. You just misunderstood what Berry Punch was trying to tell you.”

“Really?” Pinkie asked, a slight curl coming back into her mane as she looked at Twilight with hopeful eyes. “Do you know the right way to play Restoration of Equestria?”

Twilight gave a little cough and blushed slightly as he covered his muzzle with a hand. “Well, I haven’t actually played it,” he said. “But I do know the source material, and why some stallions are interested in playing it.”

“Oooh, is that why you changed into a stallion? So you could play it with us?” Pinkie asked. She then looked a bit puzzled. “But wouldn’t it have been easier to just get a coltfriend?”

Twilight’s heart sank. Despite his torso being in full view, he had really hoped that Pinkie, in her usual oblivious manner, would not have pick up on the fact he’d done a full gender swap. He started to explain that he’d only changed as part of perfecting a new difficult spell, only to get cut off by a suddenly eager Pinkie. “Well, that’s not exactly---”

“Ooh, I get it. You’re like Rainbow Dash. You like to be the one doing the scaring instead of being scared.”

“Well, no---”

“I can so see that. I mean it’s like tag. It wouldn’t be any fun if nopony was ever "it". We’d all just stand around and stare at each other. Of course we take turns in tag, but some ponies would rather be it and get to chase after other ponies and try to catch them.” Pinkie got a thoughtful look on her face. “Come to think of it, it’s mostly colts who like to be it and chase after fillies. You see it all the time in the fields outside of town. And those mares sure seem to like being chased. Is that why you turned into a stallion? Because you wanted to be it and chase after mares?”

“No!” Twilight said, blushing crimson, while at the same time trying to banish the image of chasing after Pinkie in a field of wild flowers. He had better change back soon. This body was starting to seriously undermine his scientific objectivity.

“Say, how do you know about Restoration of Equestria?” Pinkie suddenly asked, giving Twilight an accusing look. “You knew I wanted to learn adult party games. Why didn’t you tell me about a great game like this.”

“It’s not a great game. It’s not a game at all. It’s a series of books in the dominant stallion genre,” Twilight blurted out, right before clasping his hands over his muzzle. He stared in horror as Pinkie’s eyes lit up.

“A book series? Like the adventures of Daring Do?”

Only if Daring Do got captured and molested by the villain of the piece in each volume, popped into Twilight’s mind, but thanks to the firm grip he had on his muzzle the words didn’t get any further than that. Once he was sure he had control of his impulses he eased his grip and said, “Not quite. They are aimed at a stallion demographic, and some mares,” Twilight was forced to confess in the name of honesty.

“Oooh, let me see,” Pinkie begged, placing a hand on each of Twilight’s shoulders and getting right up into his face. Instinctively he retreated slightly, and his stomach pulled away from the bench it had so firmly been pressed against.

For a moment the two of them stared at each other, and then as if they were connected both of their head dipped down so they were staring at Twilight’s lap, and the long, thick, hard, throbbing, object that resided there.”

Pinkie let out a little gasp. Twilight let out a much bigger gasp, and tried to conceal the evidence with his hands. A totally inadequate gesture despite his hands been much larger in his body.

“Wow, wow, wow. This is the best spell ever, Twilight!” Pinkie enthused. She started to drop to her knees, her body already angled to slide under the table.

“Stop that, Pinkie,” Twilight cried out, taking hold of Pinkie and picking her right out from under the table, still in her crouched down posture, and setting her back in her chair. Only after he finished the move did Twilight realize how light Pinkie had seemed.

“Aww, but I wanted a closer look,” Pinkie pouted as she stared down in fascination at Twilight’s male member.

Desperate to distract Pinkie Pie, Twilight blurted out, “But I thought you wanted to know the truth about The Restoration of Equestria series, I mean, game.”

To Twilight’s mingled relief, and dismay, Pinkie pulled her gaze away from his groin and looked up at him with shining eyes. “You’ll tell me. The truth. Pinkie promise.”

Twilight let out a groan, but obediently lifted his hand and said, “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” He hated to do it. The last thing he wanted to do was sully Pinkie’s innocence. No. Scratch that. The last thing he wanted was Pinkie roaming the streets asking strange stallions if they wanted to play Restoration of Equestria with her. It was a wonder something bad hadn’t already resulted. Compared to that, him giving her a peek into the dark urges of some stallions was far preferable to what might happen otherwise. Well, by the time Twilight was finished Pinkie might be a bit less innocent but she certainly would not be wanting to play that particular game.

Author's Notes:

Next chapter. Will Pinkie's evil scheme work? Will the pink peril lead the Innocent and naive Twilight down the garden path to debauchery?

We can only hope.

Side note. I may not have got it across, but when Twilight looks in the mirror she does not see a gorgeous Alicorn princess, but a bookish nerd of no particular beauty. So her judgement on how close her male body parallels her female body might be a bit suspect.