Getting back to the car in itself is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Being so small was downright terrifying. Every shadow loomed in a way I felt smaller, not to mention the fear of being spotted was strongly on my mind. It wasn’t the shadows themselves, but the vision that would flash in front of my eyes at every twitch of the light. A pair of fangs silhouetted by two giant green eyes that I somehow knew would take everything away from me. In just the span of minutes I’d gone from a gal ready to take on criminals in the dark of night to a shivering filly shrieking at every hit of lightning.

Hobbling along on four legs had been a struggle at first. Yet I’d mastered the act using my wings to slightly offset my hobble quite fast. Too fast even. Being an athlete in numerous aspects I was familiar with the time it takes to train muscle memory and make a pattern automatic, this was unnaturally, well, natural. Another trick of the amulet? The amulet that I was slightly terrified that I had lost? I push the thought aside, it would just teleport back to me eventually after all with its disappearance.

I stumble to the car, my feathers seeming to repel that water a bit, though the same couldn’t be said for my fur that has made me start to feel like a walking ocean. I lean against the car as I work myself into a standing position to reach the door when it hits me.

I lost all my clothes.

I lost the things inside my clothes.

I lost my Bucking keys!

I scream in frustration, stomping into the puddles around the car with a fury before whimpering at my hurt leg getting jostled the wrong way. I have to go back. But I can’t. The cops are probably crawling all over the place now, they probably have them already back at HQ. I groan plopping my flank onto the cold hard ground. My Phone! Somehow I was rather skeptical about it surviving a few hundred foot fall and being struck by lightning. My cover could’ve been really well been blown tonight for my stupidity. I kick a rear hoof at the tire of my car, fighting back the tears threatening to spill out of my oversized eyeballs.

“Buck You Karma!!!”

I yell into the downpour, then shriek backwards as it responds with a crackle of lightning. I look under my car for shelter, then reconsider and head under a tall spruce in the parking lot. Lightning risk? Pffft, somehow I didn’t think those were as big of a danger anymore. Though I had to admit it was hardly pleasant. That Artemis kid said it lasted a few hours right? That means...I blush. That means I’ll be turning back into my naked self a few hours from now. In the middle of a parking lot at o’dark 30 in the morning. The police would have a hayday picking me up then. I wait a bit under the tree, fatigue starting to set in, not to mention just how cold things were now. Not as cold as I would expect, but enough for me to shiver and wrap myself into a ball of feathers and fur finding it immensely more warm once I’d shaken out a bit of the water. I watch the water trickle out of my fur. I stare at my wings feeling an odd desire swell up in my chest at the sight of my unruly appearance.

Why not? I think to myself. Birds preen themselves all the time, why not bird horses? I lean forward and gently run my muzzle over a feather, feeling them twitch under the delicate action. It wasn’t something I knew how to do, yet at the same time it felt familiar. Just as walking had. Besides it's not like I had anything better to do right? So I sit there under the tree and preen the time away. One thing I realize rather quickly is that my wings seem to have something that mixes with my saliva. As I preen I can practically feel them becoming more water resistant, seeing the drops of water trickle down them like a leaf.

I don’t know how much time passes like that, the process of preening itself seems to do wonders to ease the tension. That didn’t mean I didn’t nearly leap out of my skin when I heard a cat a little while ago. The little critter probably just about my size now. Now, at least somewhat in better condition I head back into the rain. My leg still hurts to much to put pressure on, but my wings feel way better than I expected them too. The sun has yet to arise as I reach the old building.

It’s empty. I search up and down the road but find nothing. Either the clothes were disintegrated or taken. I wish for the first, but I doubt it. Lightning would probably have charred it at most. Searching around I do see a few glass chips of my screen though and one of the buttons. I huff a bit more in disapproval, too tired from a sleepless night to do much else. Home was easily a couple hours walk from here, likely more in my current miniature and wounded state.

I look to my wings. I know they have the capability to fly despite my terrible divebombing earlier. I look up at the giant building. It had to be like the walking and preening, this body had to know how to do it. I just had to not be wrapped up in clothes and scared out of my mind. I leap into the building, my wings spreading automatically to glide me to the floor. Immediately the scents I had missed the first time hit my nose with the scent of rot, but I don’t care and start climbing the stairs.

My limbs ache after the first two flights (ha, pun). My quadrupedal form taking an immense displeasure to something my other form only had a mild tolerance for. Not to mention how many times I’d tripped and banged my head against them. Shoddy engineering I think to myself, then am reminded that they probably weren’t made for tiny horses in the first place.

Eventually I reach the top, after having to take breaks the inner athlete at me would’ve screamed at. I move over to the edge, facing out towards where I knew my house was. Even from up here I couldn’t see more than a few of the cities landmarks. I hop up onto the edge, staring down at the fall. Yet, I feel no fear. As if something inside of me scoffs at the very idea and it brings a smirk to my lips. A bird scared of heights? How ridiculous. I back up several steps, giving my hooves a little bit of a rest. The faint hints of the sun nearing the horizon driving my need to get back further. I have to do this or I’m screwed.

I take a few quick breaths then charge forward, yelling to psyche myself up. No room for doubt! I spread my wings wide, flapping them as I go, feeling the slight lift with their every wingbeat. I reach the edge tossing myself up with my good front hoof, then kicking off with my rear legs. I glide through the air like a diver kicking off the edge, the air streaming on either side as it whips at my fur.

I start to tip backwards, my legs kicking at empty air to try to balance myself forward to no avail. Then my wings curve to adjust and I’m falling forward into a familiar feeling dive. I angle them backwards slightly and again feel myself tipping before I adjust, now adding a few flaps to keep myself at the same relative height. The pattern goes back and forth until I’m no longer losing but gaining height through the ordeal. The ground below me shrinking away and causing a bit of vertigo that upsets my pattern for a moment.

This is so awesome! I yelp and cheer into the wind, letting the world know of my joy as I glide through the sky, the wind whistling through my ears and mane. My previous fatigue seeming to vanish under the chill of adrenaline as I soar across the landscape, pfft cars? None of those lame ground things could compare!

Unable to stop myself from at least trying I dive forward gathering speed, the wind growing louder and louder as it streams by me on either side. I force my good hoof out in front of me to help break through. My wings pumping like a machine as I feel little shocks zap and discharge across my mane from all the static. I see a flicker of something chromatic at my hoof just before I angle my wings upward, soaring through the wind as weightlessness envelops my body as I enter the loop--yet the usual stomach dropping sensation is absent leaving nothing but the thrill as I finish my somewhat sloppy (but awesome!) loop.

I careen through the sky I’d be home in minutes, my heart sinking at the thought of changing back. I’d have to figure out how to change back again. Was it the storm? The lightning? The fall? Regardless I couldn’t wait until the next one.

I awake slowly to a few distant noises but my fatigue bleeds it all away until I fall again into slumber once more. In and out, only occasionally seeing a bit of light through my closed eyelids. When I finally do fully awaken the first thing I realize is that I’m floating. My lungs slight strain the only hint that I wasn’t bringing air as the need to actually breathe seems to come unnaturally slow as I feel the liquid enter and exit my chest. My entire body aches and stings with no small amount of familiar bruises, but the worst of it all is in my arm...the arm that shouldn’t feel that much. It stings and burns like when you cross your legs wrong and it loses all the blood in it, then it all rushes back like pins and needles. That, except about a million times worse, or maybe a billion? Who knows, it’s not like its a logical comparison anyways. First and foremost I try to open my eyes, it takes a few tries as the light seems fairly blinding but eventually I manage to lodge them open.

I’m in a cocoon of sorts. It’s slightly transparent and has a bit of a green tint. Another thing that is immediately apparent is the small black lump at the middle of my vision. A leg lethargically reaches upward to touch it, tracing over the alien feature on my face. I look to my side and nearly scream. My once missing arm has grown out to some sort of elbow and with a hint of a hoof on the edge. With a moderate effort of will I manage to make it bend though it feels highly uncoordinated. My body is covered in black chitin, chitin filled with holes. The biology of it making my head spin. Did...did they do this to me? Or...I cast my mind back to my fuzzy memory of what had happened before. My skin had been falling off, not just that it was like some alien movie where I had literally shed my skin.

My stomach tightens with an unfamiliar sensation as it tries to represent the bile that I no doubt would have just wretched, but instead something a slightly different color of green comes up and settles slowly to the bottom of the cocoon like a lump of wax. I start to hyperventilate the slimy substance, my body straining to breathe the slime around me at the speed my body demands and I feel myself start choking. My hooves kick out at the walls of my prison and I feel it start to crack and give. My determination grows into desperation as I feel my head start to get fuzzy as I kick and thrash, then yank my head upward feeling something on my head cut through the slime to the cold air.

I repeat the action feeling the promise of air as I kick against the bottom and burst out of my prison colliding a bit painfully onto the floor with a little splat realizing moments later I’d been upside down. I retch and choke as the slime is expelled from my lungs as I heave and cough in fresh air once more. My body feeling incredibly slimy and fragile as the chitin covering my body flexes and curves, not quite hardened.

“Well, good morning sunshine!” I hear a voice call from in front of me, one I hadn’t remembered hearing before. I try to blink to clear the slime from my eyes before wiping it off on the floor which appears to have been covered with several towels. I look up and see a very familiar black shape. Though this one unlike my...the creature in the ER they had a reddish color and a purple helmet looking thing with large mandibles.

“Take it easy now, you’ve just emerged and need to wait for your shell to harden.” They instruct before tossing another towel at my face and walking back in front of the TV. Looking around it seems like we’re in an apartment of some sort. Looking up I can see the cocoon I’d just emerged from still dripping slime onto the pile of towels on the floor.

“What is--” I start to ask

“Bathroom is behind you, but I’d wait a few minutes. He presses a button and the room fills with the sound of artificial gunfire coming from the TV as the strange creature watches it from point blank range, their pupil-less eyes unblinking. I may not be an expert on bug anatomy, but the poor guy looks like he’s been through hell. His expression is that of a man trying to hold it all together and seems just a touch away from bursting into tears. A pair of thin wings occasionally buzzing intermittently on their back as they watch the film unblinking

I try to think of what had happened before, the bug in front of me didn’t look or act like any of the others I’d seen previously. Not to mention that he seems a bit smaller and less, well violent. My mind races through the events and everything seems continuous. Though of course if they’d captured and re-written my memories I’d probably think that anyways. I turn my head, then turn it some more, finding the range of my neck to be quite in-human as I stare behind me at the bathroom. The ability to move right now though escapes me as I lay there trying to make sense of the situation, coughing up a little more of the slime.

“Who--”

“Not now!” He yells quickly back in reply, not moving an inch to even look in my direction. Gazing emptily at the screen just over an inch from his muzzle.

I grumble in reply, though it comes out as more of a hiss. I sag my tongue out and open my mouth at the strange sensation of my tongue. It dangles several inches longer than a normal tongue, enough that I can see it fairly easily. It’s long and snake like with a fork at the end, then using it I carefully brush around my mouth, feeling a full set of fangs and much sharper teeth lining my mouth on both sides. I crawl forward towards the bathroom looking for a mirror. I spot one, but it's high up on the ceiling compared to my now much smaller form.

I crawl my way onto the counter as I try to adjust myself over the sink to get a closer look. Staring back at me is a similar insectile creature. Yet my eyes have a slitted aquamarine pupil, across my back is a shell with the same color. Sprouting out of my head is a curved horn that twists back and forth. A slight twitch of my back reveals a pair of sprouting wings something I’d imagine on a fly but several times bigger. The chitin covering my body with interlocking layers. Sprouting from my head and a tail is a green mop of...dare I say hair? The hair strands seem more like lengths of seaweed making the mop description all the more apparent.

My eyes linger a little longer over my new form, then my legs--hooves draw my attention as I stare at the holes. Lacking any hands I stick my tongue through one of them, flinching at the weird sensation, before pulling my tongue back into my mouth. Those were quite real, but...why on earth would any creature have something like that that looks so unnatural?

After a few moments I decide to head back, maybe he’d finished his bloody show and would give me some answers. Though staring down from the height of the counter that’s easier said than done. What if I break something? I don’t even know the critical parts of my anatomy to protect! My hooves hardly seem useful to grab at anything, and I’m not coordinated with them to attempt to leap a few times my height. Then it hits me and I blink rolling my eyes. The toilet! Aaaand he left it open. Bucking hell. I hiss in exasperation, having wanted to hop on that first and get down. I try to step back over but nearly trip when I find one of my hooves is stuck to the porcelain counter. I give it a few small yanks but it seems fairly tightly connected to the surface. At least enough that I won’t yank it hard enough for fear of knocking myself over. Instead I try to peel it off by bending forward. After a minute of struggle I feel something relax as it pops free.

Then I start pressing it next to the edge, trying to redo the adhesion before I feel it sink back in, as if the bottom of my hoof was made out of playdough as it adheres to the sink and I use it to carefully scale down the counter before I’m just left hanging from the clinging hoof and wiggling myself back and forth trying to get it unstuck before plopping a bit painfully to the floor.

I squeak a bit indignantly rubbing at my tail. Why should I trust this bug? I wonder if I could possibly escape. Then again...being a little alien bug creature that wouldn’t be out of place in a horror film meant I probably couldn’t get far anyways. The bathroom has a window, but it’s far out of my reach and I’m not confident enough in my ‘sticky hooves’ to trust the climb. What if my chitin cracks open? Somehow I think that would be much worse than a pitiful bruise when my insides become outsides.

Not seeing any other appealing option I grumble and head back towards the main room, feeling my ear twitch at the much louder than necessary volume of his show. Screw this, if he’s--well, I think its a he but I certainly wasn’t in a place to judge--if he is on my side stopping his movie to get some damn answers wouldn’t hurt anyone. If it is, well...I can deal with that when I get there.

I crawl forward some more, having to pass over the remains of the cocoon to get to him. It honestly doesn’t smell bad either, a bit fruity even with a hint of honey. The slimy texture however makes it a pain as I feel it seeping into my new joints and making my every movement slick and gross. The carpet at least helps a bit with clearing it off after.

“I need some answers bud--”

“N-no!!”

“Buck no! You can watch your bloody damn TV anytime! I’ve just had the most fucked up day of my life after literally being scared out of my skin and having my mother turn into an alien psycho while talking with my doctor about messing with my head! Not to mention being this messed up monster!”

We scowl at each other for a drawn out moment, I can practically hear the protests cranking through his mind until he huffs and clicks his show on pause. Up close I can tell that he also has one of his front legs wrapped up tightly in a cocoon and seems to be favoring it. “Not even a full queen and already as bossy as one.” He mutters before leaning back and grabbing--is that a jar of honey? Before taking off the lid and he starts chugging it as casually as one might a beer.

“You want to hear about my day you ungrateful mite? I’ve traveled and scoured all across this horrible damned planet for the brothers and sisters I grew up with. You know what I had to do today? What I did yesterday? I. Bucking. Killed them.” He seethes, his wings spread aggressively as I take a step back. “I betrayed the only mother I ever knew, defied a culture I once believed in. All because of one little traitor convincing me that what we were doing was wrong.” He pauses for a few moments, drinking another chug of the honey. “He died trying to bring those precious amulets to the ponies here. I should know, I was the one who killed him.”

He clicks off the TV, turning away from me as he moves towards the couch. Not looking back he speaks again. “He wouldn’t fight me, even when I mutilated and cut his body. Striking and cutting his precious beautiful carapace. He kept telling me how much he felt sorry for me, how much this meant to all of equestria. More than that he told me there is a way back home. That if I brought the ponies back I’d be a hero, revered and welcome among the world. That the queen had been lying about the rest of the world.”

He turns to stare at me for a long moment. “I killed my brothers and sisters to keep both you and the ponies safe. Because I’m not good with words, I killed them with the human’s evil weapons like a coward. I’m not a warrior, not an infiltrator. I’m a buckin slime pusher.” He takes another long chug of the now almost empty bottle.

“You wan’ answers?” He slurs a little. “Fin’.” He clears his throat coughing up a little of the sticky substance that dribbles over his chin. “Yer a bloody love-suckin parasite harry” He says in a perfect imitation of Hagrid. “On’y instead oh yer father being the darky bad guy its yer mum. The real one o’course.” He takes another swig? Swallow? Of his honey jar before continuing. “You is one of duh queens, breeders and such, lay the eggs n’ all. ‘Cept you’s the only one the defects err...reforms have or had. No you, no eggs, they all die out. ‘Course you need to do their little ‘reform’ thing first.” He does in air quote with his good hoof.

“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. You sound like you’ve been through a hell I can’t even fathom or understand. All I can do is thank you and try to understand. Just...you have to understand that this is all going over my head. I don’t have a clue what any of this is, and like you I’ve been plucked out of the life I thought I knew for something entirely different. The mother I thought I knew, and the doctor I trusted are both parasites that have been messing with my mind and keeping me imprisoned.”

“You wanted answers ‘em, you got ‘em!” He grumbles before taking another swig of the small little bear bottle. “The importan’ thing for you to know is I saved your damn tail out there. I freed all the other little ponies and friendship gibberish. You fed on them, and hatched from your stolen body, presto chango, you yourself again! ‘Course I didn’t know that they’d scrambled that head of yours that badly. All o’ you don’t have a clue who you even buckin’ are! That’s downright disturbin’ it is. I don’t know jack about mind magic, but those memories are probably still in there somewhere.”

I just stare at him, trying to process all that had happened. Memories blurring by of all the time I’d spent growing up. I’d questioned events certainly, but I just assumed I had remembered them wrong. With that little truth...how could I tell speculation from fact of how many times they had messed with my head? Was it every month? Week? Day? I wheel around, not able to hear anymore as he babbles in a drunken stupor. There really isn’t much of anywhere to go but the bathroom again, but this time I shut the door behind me. My body is already starting to heave and pant with a sickness I didn’t have.

I sit there on the sticky floor for a long time. Just focusing on breathing and calming myself down, then it hits me. My voice is different, higher and slightly two toned. In further retrospect I realize we weren’t even speaking english earlier. I look over my insectile form with new interest, seeing the slight curves and shape--but more than that sensing what wasn’t there. My throat has gone dry as I swallow, a very different sensation swelling up in my chest. Queen he had said, and if my memory serves... I turn my flexible insectile body around this way and that before reaching my good front hoof across my chest and belly, past my hips and up towards me tail when I feel it.

And I cry.

Despite all of this, despite my world being turned upside down, my mother betraying me, my body literally falling to pieces, despite the fact that my life will never be the same again. For the first time in my life something feels right. In that moment of clarity I weep with joy in this moment of terror and fear. Least if I die now today it will be as the sex I was supposed to be. That fact alone acts as a tether to my sanity as I wait, and sit, and weep, and cry, and cheer, and scream at all my new changes. After a few moments the other bug comes closer to grip me in a stern hug reassuring me in his own way. Who even am I anymore?

The next school day passes like most others. My aunt had reminded me of my father’s order from the previous night. Find a girl or she’ll find one for me. Yet passing through the school I just couldn’t focus on a single one. No ‘special connection’ or the ‘butterflies’ to feel, not even the sweaty palms or nervousness. They were, for lack of a better term, Just girls. Not to mention how rude it would seem to ask a girl out at random pretending, if even just a little, that there might be the possibility of a future with someone I was already pretty certain I wasn’t attracted to. Besides, wasn’t asking a girl to a dance on the basis of her looks pretty shallow?

Needless to say I can’t think of a way out of this by the time school ends. Today though I’m really much more interested in the little group we had started to form. I’d texted Mike during lunch about it, and chatted with his dad when he drove me home. He himself couldn’t attend because of his day job but he planned to eventually. As I arrive Angela is of course already there Mike and Aaron arrive shortly after. Angela herself is sporting a sling for her arm.

“You won’t believe what happened last night!” She squeaks looking as if she’d chugged a bit too much caffeine. “I changed into one too! Last night I jumped off a building and flew home! Oh my God it was so cool!” She pauses for a moment, her excitement taking a bit of a rapid downturn. “I uh...well you see...after getting hit by lightning and a chase by armed gunman I might’ve kinda sorta...lost my phone and keys that were probably picked up by the police.” She shuffles with an awkward smile.

“You...WHAT!?” I scream as I try to wrap my head around what she just said. “You were seen, you lost personally identifying info including your phone that had OUR personal info and texts?!” I take a deep breath, feeling my skin and forehead start to tingle as I try to calm myself. “Are you trying to get us all killed or locked up in area-51?”

“I was under a lot of stress okay? I was just trying to do some good with my abilities and all. With great power comes great responsibility!” She replies making me groan and roll my eyes at the absurd phrase.

“Responsibility not to get you and everyone of us killed! You’re not a police officer and all those super heroes always end up needlessly assaulting people and causing collateral damage. Perhaps you should pay a bit more attention!”

“Well excuuuuuse me princess. Who made you in charge anyways? In case you’ve forgotten to all the normies magic doesn’t exist. So what if they got a few weird texts? It was probably all blown to hell by the lightning strike anyways.”

I press my hand into my forehead, rubbing at the tingling nub of a horn just below my skin. “Tell me you didn’t pull a superman and kill anyone while disintegrating a building.” Though I had to begrudgingly admit that sounds kind of cool.

“No...at least I don’t think so. I was kind of busy fleeing for my life and I’m pretty sure I didn’t cause the strike anyways. Onto more important questions...what happened with you? Looks like you got a bit of a bruise on your head. Do a little of your own superhero work?” She grins like a cheshire while raising an eyebrow in a way I’d consider dangerously flirtatious.

“No!” I reply instantly. “After school last friday I was literally dragged across the entire town! Like someone with the force was pulling me all the way to the hospital. It turned me into a horse again--”

“Pony!” Angela interjects.

“Right right pony. In the middle of a hospital! Then all of a sudden it was like I became a different person. Was as if there was someone else in my mind trying to break out--and I...it was like I didn’t want to resist it. It felt so...so familiar. You d-don’t think they could be p-possessing us do you? What if they’re just giving us these powers so they can take over our minds? When you changed, did something take over your mind too?”

“You seem pretty much yourself to me.” Aaron interjects “Though I’ll admit I don’t really know you that much to start with.” He adjusts his pose leaning against the tree. “Though you kind of acted like a scared animal last time I saw you changed. No offense.”

I rub at my head, once against brushing the tiny nub on my forehead. Barely even noticeable, invisible at any kind of distance but that didn’t mean it wasn’t both literally and figuratively on my mind at every moment of the day. Every time I’d stare at Angela’s arm I would feel my thigh’s prickle as if they were filling up with a static charge. “I don’t think our changes are going to be temporary for very long. After...after my last change some parts didn’t change back. I’ve got a nub on my head, and the ass tattoos didn’t go away.”

“Neither did mine.” Angela states holding out her phone showing a picture of her pocketwatch and rainbow lightning bolt on it, passing it around for all of us to see.

“They’re called cutiemarks.” Mike finally decides to speak up. “My uh...Dad came from eque--from another dimension. He tells me they had a war there several years back, an invading species known as changelings had conquered the entire city and the entire ruling class.” He looks at the rest of us with a bit of nervousness. “I’m a Thestral, a bat pony of sorts. We deal with spirits and the like while being able to see through magical disguises.”

At last the part I was wanting to speak about. “You don’t happen to have any idea where these pendants are from do you? Or why you don’t seem to have one like us?” I look to the others who seemed like they’d only just now realized he was standing there. “He uh, got me out of a rough situation last friday. Magical starvation thing?”

He nods in affirmation. “This is as new to me as the rest of you, but here’s what I know so far. I don’t know much about Equestria--No, that really is what its called. Certainly not my choice. The closest thing I could think about those amulets is the elements of harmony, but those were commonly gold and a lot more elaborate. We don’t really have an earth pony to tell us more about the actual enchantment on it.”

I see Angela wince as she adjusts her posture, the sprained arm seemed to give her a bit of trouble. Yet just seeing the wince I feel a tremor over my body with a tingling that’s all too familiar. This time though it originates from the marks on my hips. “I...might have to go, my...mark is feeling all weird about Angela for some reason.”

“If you have a cutie mark telling you to do something, you probably shouldn’t ignore a call of destiny.” Mike responds casually, making me twitch at the term and ‘destiny.’

“I may not be an egghead like you Arty, but my talent is speed which definitely fits in with a stopwatch and lightning. You haven’t told us yours...but maybe it's something you can use even while being a human too…” She steps forward only making the tingling grow a bit stronger, as if she had become a space heater.

“It’s a lame cartoonish heart with sparkles!” I yelp trying to take a few steps backwards, my body starting to ache as I feel it starting to change. However I blink and she’s grabbed me in an iron grip using that speed thing of hers. At her touch my vision seems to tunnel.

The world seems to slow down around me as I look at her hand, only its not just her hand anymore. In a pulsating wave I am seeing through her hand through the muscles and bones, down to the marrow. It travels down her arm showing her arteries and tendons like a full scan MRI. The slight irregularity around her forearm where I somehow know she broke her arm a few years back. Yet it doesn’t stop there, the wave travels down her arm and across her chest giving me a full view of her muscles moving underneath her skin, across her clavicle and bones. Yet one thing strikes me as odd. Her bones are hollow. Not to mention her overall skeleture seems a bit unnaturally slick. As my vision passes to her spine I see a faint structure sprouting from behind her shoulder blades.

“Uh Artemis...?” I’m startled out of my daze as my vision seems to return to normal as I look up at her worried expression before I suddenly get a stabbing sensation in my arm making me grit my teeth to avoid a scream. I look over expecting to have been stabbed or other, but it seems fine. Not to mention my back now aches and my legs are burning a bit. With her arm on mine the movement seems to come independently of the pain before I realize what’s going on.

I’m feeling her pain.

I yank my arm out of hers rather forcefully and staggering back rubbing at the pain rapidly fading in my arm. “Don’t! D-don’t touch me!” I screech, terrified at the possibilities of what this could mean. Except now my cutie marks were burning harder than ever, as if enraged I had refused. “It’s a curse!” I reply staggering back. “I touched you and...I felt your every wound! My arm hurt like hell!”

I grit my teeth while slinging off my bookbag next to the tree in case I had to run. Is this what my destiny is? To feel those suffering around me? What kind of sick fuck would want that? I lean against the tree, shaking. The difference now is that the transformation tingles had faded a bit, but the hot sting of my marks was bordering on painful itself.

“I-I’m sorry…” Angela doesn’t move from her position. The previous excitement having all vanished from her face in place of concern. “I just thought...maybe it’d be cool? I...I didn’t mean to get you hurt too.” She moves away slowly and carefully back towards the railing around the track. “It’s...its gone now right?” I only give her a few small nods in response.

“It hurt...but I could see straight through you. Your tendons, muscles, blood vessels, everything.”

“I uh...hate to interrupt but you got some glowing pants there buster” Aaron interjects gesturing to my lower half, my eyes following his movements. On either side of my hips was a glow of light, though heavily distorted it was probably obvious to everyone what it was.

“It wants me to do something, it’s like it wants me to suffer." I scowl at the offending mark feeling its tingles getting stronger once more as my back starts to creak and my hands stiffen. “Whatever it is I really would like to avoid turning into a pony again. What if it keeps progressing and we can’t change back?”

“Regardless of that all, you probably better do what it wants before it goes nuclear or something.” Aaron states.

“Mine hurt too at first, a heart could mean a lot of things honestly. Love, empathy, maybe even healing. I won’t lie that’d be pretty cool. I highly doubt it could be limited by a curse.” Angela remarks. “Tell me you aren’t curious about what you can do. You don’t even have to be a pony to use it! Imagine what you can do.”

“Because it really freakin hurts. That’s kind of our bodies way of telling us not to do something. What if my ability is just feeling others pain? That’s not a gift.”

“Cutie Marks are a special talent, typically corresponding to what you are good at or will become good at. In their culture to insult ones cutie mark is a grave offense. It’s one of the things that tie their entire society together, there has to be more to it.”

“What he said, it doesn’t even really hurt that bad either! You just probably got it all at once. I mean ...I'll admit I’m a little biased here with the sprained arm and all, but come on now. I know you are curious, and despite saying how much you hate changing you keep doing it. What is really holding you back here?”

I grit my teeth and clench my fists trying to work through it in my mind. “Because I don’t want to be a mare! That’s why!” Angela steps slowly forward towards me. “I’m scared because it's something I don’t understand. It’s something that’s messing with my head, its something that is literally--AGH!” I yelp as my body pulses with magic and I’m forced to double over as my back curves forward. “F-fine! Anything to stop this damn thing again!”

“It’s probably only hurting so much because you’re fighting it. My change was nearly painless when it happened. I’ll hold your arm for five minutes, okay? Maybe if you do whatever your mark is trying to make you do you won’t keep changing.” She barely waits for my small nod, before grabbing my hand softly.

Instantly my vision snaps back to its scanning. Only this time it’s not sight anymore, I feel weightless and disconnected. My body drifting around much like I’d expect a ghost to, I could feel the throbbing of her heart as if I, myself, was the heart. Feeling my body stretch and contract, the tingle of every pulse. Yet that’s not what I’m here for. I can feel its pull even from here. The way her nerves occasionally spasm and throb as if pointing me to where it wants me to go, and so I follow.

I glide to the side, instantly feeling the chorus of pain singing from around the wound. The muscles, the tendons, and the bone joint too. What do I do now though? I could see it, I could feel it. Yet how could I help it? I try to brush my hand through the broken flesh, though it resembles a hoof now. A slight pressure forms at the base of my horn, as if hundreds of ants were crawling towards it across my skull. Push I instinctively command, feeling an ever so slight heat as the torn muscles slowly start to align.

“Mmmph…” I hear Angela groan from a body that feels far away as if deep under water. I very nearly lose my concentration by the double sensation before focusing back to the task at hand. How do I fix it now though? Luckily it seems like my magic has an idea of what to do and I try to tense the same muscle on my horn, trying to push more energy into it. I see her twitch and squirm as the fibers start to replicate, expanding outwards as they start to merge together on the micro scale. It’s clearly not a comfortable process, as her squirming and yelps attest, my own body mimicking the incredible itching. Not that I have the ability to satisfy it right now though.

It’s an agonizingly slow process, her body mending just a few hundred cells at a time. That might seem like a lot but that’s about a millionth of an inch at a time. Instead of trying to perfectly fix it all I change the process to heal in strips to bind them closer together. Watching her own biology slowly start to heal itself. I only slightly make it faster by the time I’m too exhausted to continue and my little daze fades back into my consciousness.

“--And what could I do as a human? The amulet did nothing but make me feel a little sick. Oh! I think he’s coming out of his little trance now.” Aaron states and the others turn to look at me, seeming to be in the middle of their own conversation. My head resting a little awkwardly against Angela’s shoulder, something I quickly rectify by scooting away.

“H-how long was I out?” I ask, trying to stretch out the cramps that seem to have filled my back and neck. Not to mention that I now have a migraine from my throbbing headache, it takes me a moment of rubbing my head to realize the changes from earlier had faded away.

“Just over an hour I think. Was some weird voodoo stuff you were doing, though I gotta admit it was really irritating at first. Now though it barely hurts at all so...Progress!” She chuckles, seeming rather thrilled at the subject. Me though? Feel like I just ran a 5K, but I have to admit I feel really good. Unnaturally happy even in a way I haven’t felt in years of lonely wanderings from school to school and it's not even from their praise. It’s as if just doing this simple act has filled me like I was chugging the happy pills.

“Uh...I think that’s enough for today. My aunt is probably going to be upset as it is with me being late and all. Well...there is one thing but I don’t really know how to phrase it.” I don’t really want to bring out the topic here, but maybe they’d know someone and just assume I was straight like all the other guys? “There is a dance this Saturday and my folks want me to fin--”

“Find a gal so they can keep pretending your straight?” Angela interjects casually as if she’d just announced the weather. Meanwhile I stare at her with a dumbstruck expression, my mind trying and failing to come up with any feasible response to get me out of this horrible situation.

“What? I hate to break it to yeah but its kiiiiinda obvious. Unlike the other dudes at the school you can go 10 seconds without staring at my boobs, you don’t try to assert yourself with the needless push for dominance, you completely blew off my teasing flirt earlier, and just now didn’t even blush when you woke nuzzling into my side like a little cat.” She gestures to the rest of the group. “Spoiler alert? I mean it was a guess--but still, am I right?”

Not seeing any other option with the corner I’ve been backed into I decide to confess. “I honestly...don’t really know. I just know I’m more comfortable around gals and don’t see them in a sexual way.” My palms start to feel sweaty at the concept of breaching the topic. “I just...can we not have this conversation?” I plead, hating to be put on the spot. Mike looks accepting, or like it was a casual thing. Aaron’s face is a bit more unreadable.

“Well...you do keep changing into a mare so…” Aaron starts off before I cut him off with a glare. Just the thought of that causing a bit of heat to rise in my chest and my mind to drift back to my previous experiences in that form.

“I’ll go with yea if you’re just needing a token gal.” Angela mercifully changing the subject. Her stern expression replaced with one of concern and patience that warms my heart a little at how rapidly her tone changed from before. “We can chat a bit more then? I’ll probably just drown in the punch bowl and text on my phone the whole time anyways. I may be an athlete but dancing isn’t a real sport.” She says with a smirk.

“S-sounds great.” I manage to get out while grabbing my bag, my entire body just filled with tension that only makes my new headache that much worse as I head home for the day with perhaps more questions on my mind then before.