An hour later, in the Appleoosa medical clinic, the black alicorn was still screaming.

“So, what do you think is wrong with him, doc?” Braeburn asked the white earth pony mare in front of him.

“For the last time Brae, I’m a nurse, not a doctor,” she mumbled as she examined the screaming alicorn, tossing her maroon ponytail over her other shoulder. “As for what’s wrong with him, let’s start with the fact that he’s a he. There are no records of male alicorns existing, ever. Up to this point, it’s been considered a physical possibility for one to exist. Two, he’s either in shock or having a psychotic break. Or both, it’s hard to tell.”

“No broken bones or nothin’? Ah mean, pardon my Prench, but it looked like he fell from the bucking sky!” Braeburn gaped.

“No signs of trauma, but that’s no surprise. Alicorns supposedly can recover from anything, and are very hard to hurt to begin with,” the nurse explained, looking her patient over. “There aren’t even any signs of cranial trauma, so this isn’t due to a concussion or other brain damage. Near as I can tell, he just snapped.”

“But why? Appleoosa is the friendliest and least threatening place south of Canterlot,” Braeburn asked, giving the stranger a onceover himself.

“Wait just a fucking minute,” the patient blurted out, the screams suddenly stopping, “Canterlot? Are you serious with that name?”

The two smaller ponies almost jumped in their fur. “Um… yes?” Braeburn responded hesitantly. “It’s Equestria’s capital. I take it you’re not from around here, are ya, partner?”

“Equestria? That has got to be the single gayest name for a place I have ever heard, not to mention lazy. I mean, really? Might as well have named where I come from Primatopia or Simianapolis,” the alicorn rambled angrily to nobody in particular. “I hate this fucking place already!” He blinked, his face suddenly going blank. “Oh god, I’m stuck in a world full of talking colorful ponies.”

The two mortal ponies shared looks that amounted to “what the buck is he talking about?”

The alicorn roughly shook his head and leaped off the observation table. He stumbled and almost fell as he tried and failed to stand on his hind legs, only hunching his back against the ceiling before giving up and getting on all fours. “Look, I don’t have time for this shit. You said Canterlot’s the capital city, right?”

Braeburn nodded, his jaw slightly slack. “That’s right.”

“Take me to your leader; there’s a dangerous lunatic god clown on the loose who probably wants to skullfuck everyone on the continent with lightning bolts for shits and giggles, and don’t you dare stick that in me, bitch!” he snapped at the nurse, who was furtively reaching for a syringe. “I am not crazy! Okay, I took that insanity plea in court that one time, and I do take pills, but this is no laughing matter! Every second is a second closer to Armageddon for this Technicolor hellhole, and I need to get to whoever’s in charge right the fuck now.”

The pair of mortals shared another look, and both silently agreed to not mess with the crazy, heavily armed immortal.

“There should be a train leaving for Canterlot soon,” the nurse said slowly. “If you hurry, you can catch it.”

The alicorn pointed a front leg to Braeburn. “You, show me to the train station, now! You’re taking me to this Canterlot place.”

Braeburn’s eyebrows shot up. “B-but Ah’ve never-”

“No buts except getting yours in gear,” the alicorn snapped. “Unless you want the world as you know it to go up in hellfire, move it!”

“Yes sir!” Braeburn squeaked, dashing out into the street with the crazy alicorn hot on his heels, though the strange stallion was stumbling over his hooves every now and then like a foal learning to walk. “Oh sweet Celestia, what’ve I gotten myself into?”

“Mmm… oh yeah…” Lyra flicked her tongue out to take another taste, another happy moan following. “So sweet as always, Bonny…”

“Yes, Lyra, I know. And stop calling me Bonny, please?”

“Aw, but it’s cute,” Lyra mewled with another lick, earning a groan from Bon Bon.

“Seriously, stop.”

“But I don’t wanna,” the unicorn whined with another, longer lick. “Besides, you asked me to.”

“But do you have to drag it out so much?” her partner moaned.

“Yes, yes I do,” she giggled. She let out another loving moan as her licking got faster.

“Lyra.”

“Mmmm,” she hummed, ignoring her name.

“Lyra.”

“Mrrrrm… yes?” she asked breathlessly.

“Lyra!”

Lyra put down the bowl with her tongue still drenched in chocolately goodness to see her marefriend’s tan face bright red and her blue eyes narrowed. She had her back turned to the counter and was glaring at her from the front of the candy shop and into the kitchen. “Could you please stop making those… noises while you lick off my equipment?”

“But it’s so good!” Lyra half whined, half pouted, slurping her tongue back into her mouth and her lower lip quivering.

“You’re doing it to tease me and you know it!” she hissed, shifting her weight on her hind legs.

Lyra’s mock innocence burst into flames to reveal the teasing devil underneath, pitchfork barely hidden behind her back. “And I also know that you love it, Bonny,” she giggled with a smirk.

Bon Bon scowled, her face growing redder and avoiding eye contact with her marefriend. “That’s beside the point. You’re just lucky that nopony’s in the shop right now, or you’d be sleeping on the couch.”

“You keep saying that, and yet it keeps not happening,” Lyra said with a shrug, her smirk still plastered on her face while she lapped up the last of the chocolate mix from the mixing bowl. “Come on, you can’t live without me.”

“I’m weighing my options,” Bon Bon mumbled before turning back to her post.

“I love you too, Bonny,” Lyra said with a smile. She turned around, humming to herself as she started properly washing Bon Bon’s candy making equipment in the sink. Her horn glowed, her lyre floating from the kitchen table over to its master as she began to play. A comfortable silence passed between the two lovers; Lyra didn’t look back to see the smile on Bon Bon’s face from her music, but she didn’t have to anymore.

The silence was short lived. The front door slammed open, the sound so loud it almost drowned out the ringing bell above it. Lyra’s ear twitched. “Who would come this early? School isn’t out yet,” she wondered out loud under her breath.

“Hello, and welcome to Bon Appetite,” Bon Bon greeted. “What can I…” She paused. “Oh, you’re that clod who yelled at Princess Celestia, aren’t you?” she deadpanned. “What do you want?”

“Clod? Clod?! Pah, quick to judge, aren’t you?” a shrill male voice scoffed. “If you must know, I’m on her payroll right now, which makes me a government employee. I suggest you treat me with a bit more respect.”

“I’m quivering in my horseshoes.” Lyra could practically feel Bon Bon roll her eyes. “Again, what do you want? I think we’ll both be happier if you get your plot out of here as fast as possible.”

Lyra set her lyre and the dishes down. She leaned around the corner to get a better peek into the front of the shop. Lo and behold, there was that scientist that had tried to kill Celestia and yet was somehow not in jail for life, stupid looking goggles and all.

“I’m looking for the other mare that lives here. Your buckbuddy, right?” he asked with all the grace and tact of a drunken buffalo.

“She is my marefriend,” Bon Bon growled. “Now, why should I let her talk to you?”

“Don’t give me that look; Rainbow Dash’s words, not mine. And you’re her lesbian lover, not her secretary. Just tell me where the damn mare is,” he demanded.

“How about no?” she huffed.

“How about kiss my ass?” He propped his front legs up and slammed his hooves on the counter.

“Using racist slurs isn’t making me want to talk to you more,” Bon Bon deadpanned.

“Again with the-” Insano flailed his front legs in the air. “I am not racist against donkeys; that word doesn’t mean that where I come from, and quite frankly it’s fucking stupid!”

“Sure it doesn’t,” Bon Bon drawled in the way she always did when she was losing patience and restraining herself from branding someone’s plot with her hoof. “Look, are you going to leave on your own, or am I going to have to kick you out?”

Insano brought his hooves back down on the counter and snarled. “Fine, if you want to do it the hard way, then-”

“Excuse me,” Lyra cut in, leaning her head clear into view, “but what exactly do you want with me?”

Her marefriend shot her a look that clearly said “get back in the kitchen,” while Insano’s petty rage melted into a mad smile. “Ah, there you are! I’m here to offer you an opportunity of the lifetime, my fair mare.”

“Oh you are, are you?” Bon Bon drawled again, turning back to the scientist.

Lyra smiled nervously. “Mister Insano, I’m sure whatever you’re selling is fascinating, but I really don’t think we need anything right now.”

“I’m not offering to sell you something,” Insano scoffed, crinkling his nose. “Good lord, salesmen are the bane of all things dignified.”

“Because cowering in front of Celestia the other week just screamed dignity,” Bon Bon sniped with a smirk, earning a giggle from Lyra.

“What I am proposing,” he continued pointedly, “is that I give you something, and I give you money for letting me give it to you. Really, you’d be taking advantage of me.”

Lyra’s brow furrowed and her face darkened. “I don’t know what the other ponies are saying about me, but just because I play my lyre on the street corner for spare bits does not mean I’m a prostitute.”

“Prosti-” Insano shook his head angrily, his face draining of color even though it was white to begin with. “Oh fuck no, not that! I wouldn’t stick my dick in any of you equine harlots if I was poisoned and your vaginas were the only cure! I’m offering to give you an operation, god.”

“You’re offering to put my life in your care while you cut me open,” Lyra said flatly.

“Exactly! Well, except not exactly,” he stammered, climbing off the counter and putting all fours back on the floor. “I heard from a little birdie that you’re a ‘humare,’ yes? A pony that loves her some homo sapiens?”

Bon Bon’s cold stare turned into evasive embarrassment, sending a little sting through Lyra’s heart. “I am, yes. What business is it of yours?”

“Well, through the miracle of science, I’ve developed an operation to turn a pony from a four-legged trotter to a two-legged walker,” Insano said with a proud smile. “All it’ll take is a few hours of genetic engineering and chiropractic work. I just need a test subject, and I’m willing to pay for it.”

Lyra blinked as she felt her heart and mind try to outrace each other. “H-how much?” she stammered out, trying not to either faint or squee so hard she could break glass.

“Well, considering what’s in my budget,” he started coyly, “and how much this surgery will cost me in materials, and the fact this is strictly off the record and with my own spare time… how does fifteen hundred bits sound?”

“F…f…fifteen hundred?” Bon Bon stammered, her jaw slack. “We wouldn’t have to worry about taxes for the next year and still have bits left over!”

The two marefriends exchanged looks, Bon Bon’s jaw almost to the floor and Lyra barely hiding a diabetes-inducing grin. Bon Bon shook her head and dragged Lyra back into the kitchen. “Just a minute, we need to talk this over,” she said quickly.

“Hey!” Lyra yelped, kicking her hind legs.

“Whatever, just hurry it up,” Insano huffed, crossing his forelegs and tapping his hoof on the counter.

Bon Bon roughly set Lyra on her plot in front of her, her lips in a pained frown. “Look, sweety,” she whispered, “I know that we could really use the money, and that this is what you’ve always wanted, but… I’m not sure it’s worth the risk of trusting this guy. He’s dangerous; we all saw him snap and attack Princess Celestia. Nopony trustworthy or stable would ever do that.”

“I know, I know,” Lyra whispered back, “but he also operated on Dinky’s eyes while he was still recovering from surgery, didn’t he? He can’t be all bad.” A little niggling of doubt squirmed in the back of her mind, but she quashed it.

“I guess,” Bon Bon muttered, her frown deepening. “I don’t know.” She sighed. “Look, I know I haven’t been the most supportive of your humare lifestyle, but if this is really, really what you want… I’ll love you whether you come back walking on two legs or four, okay?” She pulled Lyra into a tight hug, nuzzling her cheek against her marefriend’s.

Lyra felt a rush of heat grace her cheeks as she hugged Bon Bon back. “Thanks, hon… that really means a lot.” She squeezed a bit tighter before pulling away and kissing Bon Bon’s nose. “But this really is what I want. I’m going to go through with it, okay? I’ll be careful. If he tries anything, I’ll grip his balls with my magic and not let go until they’re a fine red mist.”

“That’s my mare,” Bon Bon snickered, kissing Lyra’s nose back.

Lyra smiled and turned back around, trotting into the kitchen with Bon Bon in tow. “Okay, Mister Insano, I’ll do it. But no funny business, you hear?”

“That’s Doctor Insano to you,” Insano sneered before grinning ear to ear. “But splendid! Now if you’ll just follow me back to my lab, we can get started. I guarantee you’ll love your new body!” He turned around and cantered out with a weird spring in his step, not looking back to see if Lyra was following.

The two mares shared a look before Bon Bon nuzzled her partner. “Go on; I’ll be waiting,” she whispered with a small but worried smile.

“You won’t have to wait long,” Lyra assured. She pecked Bon Bon teasingly on the lips before galloping off after Insano, a trail of dust left in her wake. Next Chapter: Transformation Central II: The Seconding Estimated time remaining: 23 Minutes