-----Two Weeks Earlier-----

         The telephone rang just as Jack had walked through the front door. Setting down his messenger bag on the dining room table, he walked over to the handset hanging on the wall and picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Jack?"

The female voice on the other ended sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it.

"Who's this?"

"Jack, it's me. Shimmer Stardust- I mean, Irene."

Jack was shocked, "Irene? Jesus, how are you? How's life in Equestria?"

"I'm fine jack, and life's great. I got a job in a boutique within a couple of weeks after I got ponified. It's so wonderful, Jack. You have no idea how great life is there," She said, her smile practically bursting through the phone.

Jack smiled, "That's great. So where are you? I thought service wasn't so good in Equestria."

"I'm back in Newark. The pony who owns the boutique where I work came to work at the ponification center that just opened up here. We work well together, so she asked me to come with her. Have you heard about it?"

"Yeah. Actually, I was planning on coming over there and getting ponified soon."

"Wow, You should. It's so much easier being a pony: Life is wonderful, everyone is so nice, and you can just do what you love all day. How about Michael? How is he? Has he gotten ponified yet? I tried calling his place, but the number was disconnected."

Jack paused, "Um, Irene, listen..."

"What is it?"

The day Irene got ponified, initially, both Michael and Jack were waiting outside the ponification camp for her to come out. In the end, Michael had said something about him not being able to stay. Jack knew why; anyone who knew Michael and Irene would know why, except Irene. When she finally came out, Jack made up a story about Michael's lab catching on fire. It happened often enough that she didn't question it.

After that, Michael disappeared for a couple of weeks. But, by the time he came back, Irene had already left for Equestria.

Jack answered her, "Look, Irene, Michael is fine, but he... he isn't the same guy he was a year ago. He's changed. A lot."

Irene became flippant, "What are you talking about, Jack? I've known Michael since the start of college and he was the same happy, quirky, funny guy the whole way 'till the last time I saw him. I know it's been a year, but he couldn't have changed that much."

There were some loud noises in the background, "Look, I've gotta go. You tell Michael I called, alright?"

"Yeah, okay. Bye."

"Bye!"

Jack hung up the receiver. Irene was wrong. Michael HAD changed. Before Irene was ponified, Michael was always the person to turn to for a good joke or just to see a friendly face. He was always filled with such life; such energy. After he returned from his disappearance, though, it was like something had ripped that spark from right out of him. He still made jokes and smiled, but something about it was hollow, like the only reason he did it was because he didn't know how to act any other way.

Michael stopped going to clubs with Jack and the rest of his friends and, instead, only went to this one mellow bar called "Eden Hall". Besides the bar, he spent all of his time at the university. But when the university stopped giving him classes to teach, he spent all his time either in his home laboratory, working on his cars, or driving.

After nearly eight months of this, Jack had finally had enough and made Michael snap out of it. Since then, he had gotten better; some of the old spark was back, but it was still nowhere near what it was before. In retrospect, Jack hadn't realized just how much of an effect Irene had on Michael.

-----Present Day-----

  With a bit of magic, Twilight nimbly entered the pass-code into the keypad beside the entrance of the actual ponification area. The translucent plexiglass door, wide enough to move two gurneys through at once, slid into the wall with a satisfying whoosh.

"This way," she said, walking through the doorway.

Michael followed and immediately felt a sense of uneasiness. Though, intellectually, he was past his suspicions of the ponification center, in the deeper recesses of his mind, there came a dull nagging feeling; the old prejudices he had held with him for more than a year refusing to just disappear.

He pushed away those old thoughts and continued down the white corridor, looking at the each door.

Michael looked ahead and saw a white unicorn with a purple mane moving towards them. She was wearing a pair of red rimmed glasses.

"Ponies need glasses?" he thought.

Twilight called out to her, "Oh, Rarity, just the pony I was looking for!"

"And I you, Twilight. Honestly, is there nothing we can do about this white paint? Absolutely everything is white! It's just so... so, sterile! This is my department so I should hope I have some say in these matters."

  Twilight sighed, "Alright, I'll look into it, but that's not why I'm here. This gentleman here would like to see Shimmer."

Rarity sized him up, then gasped, "Oh my goodness! You're Michael, aren't you? You look much better without that hideous lab coat and goggles ensemble."

Michael was stunned, "I'm sorry, what?"

"Oh don't worry, it wasn't so bad. Actually, I rather liked the black gloves." Rarity began pushing him further down the hall, "It's alright, Twilight, I'll take it from here."

Michael looked over his shoulder at Twilight, wearing a look as if to say "what's going on?"

Twilight just shrugged and turned around, heading back towards the sliding doors.

Michael looked down at Rarity, "Alright, alright, I'm moving," the unicorn began walking at his side. "So, how exactly do you know me?"

"Oh, we've never actually met, but Shimmer has told me all about you."

"She has?"

"Oh, darling, of course! Why, while we were working in my boutique, anytime I would give her a magic lesson, she would always say 'how fascinating' you would find it or 'how interesting' you would think life in Ponyville would be. Oh and how excited she was when she learned there would be a Conversion Bureau here in Newark! You two must have been quite the couple."

"Well, actually, we were just friends."

        She gave him a devilish grin, "Oh, darling, don't be so modest. Nopony talks about friends like she talked about you."

"No, really, we were-"

"Shimmer! You have a visitor!" Rarity called down the hall in a sing-song tone.

A white pony began backing through a doorway, "If it's Carol again tell her that, for the last time, I can't change her into a pegasus! Either she gets it or she-"

It was Irene. The same voice, the same crystal blue eyes, the same raven black hair in the same ponytail and bangs. Unicorn or not, there was no mistaking her.

"Irene?"

Michael didn't mean to say it like he did. As softly as he did. As desperately as he did. But it just emerged on his breath, like his heart was speaking again for the first time in too long; out of practice, but crying out.

She turned her head toward the sound of a name and a voice nearly forgotten.

"Michael?"

He had changed. He looked so much older now; so much more worn and tired. It was him, but not the same him that she kept propped up against her bedroom mirror. The him that was just fresh from the laboratory supply store, wearing a crisp new lab coat, gloves, and goggles, grinning like a child with a new toy. He wasn't smiling now. She had never seen him not smiling and now she was seeing him on the edge of tears. Not tears of sadness, but tears of a man laying eyes on a single glass of water after years of wandering a desert.

She smiled and approached him. Michael wrapped Irene in an embrace.

"How are you, Michael?"

He loved the sound of his name on her voice. It was like an elixir; restoring him to the man he was so long ago. He composed himself and let go, but stayed at eye level with her, kneeling.

        "I'm fine, and you?"

"Wonderful."

Rarity took her cue, "Well, I believe the two of you have some catching up to do. Shimmer, you're taking the rest of the day off."

Irene turned to her, "Thanks Rarity." Next Chapter: Chapter 9 Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 9 Minutes