I had everything in place. Gummy and I had forged a letter from Celestia, and I’d bribed Spike with a triple-layer chocolate gem cake to have it delivered to Twilight. Any second now, all five of my best friends would run into the library in a panic to retrieve the Elements.

I shifted my weight onto my back hooves and put my goggles and flak helmet on. Just a little longer and they’d step through that door and I’d push the button on my party cannon and surprise the heck out of them.

Oh, this was going to be the best party ever!

“Wait for it. . .” I said.

“Wait for it. . .” I repeated.

“Uh, Pinkie? Why are you talking to a pillow cushion?” Lyra asked.

“Shut up! You’re ruining their immersion!”

“Whose immersion?”

The door swung open and Twilight flicked on the lights with her magic. With a smirk, I pushed the button.

“Surprise!” everypony shouted.

Several things happened at once. Twilight, being the jumpy alicorn she is, teleported to safety as the gunpowder charge in my cannon detonated. Dash, being twenty percent faster than the average Pegasus, rolled to the side. Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy stood there like rabbits in front of a runaway apple cart.

Poor Fluttershy took the brunt of the blast as several rolls of streamers that failed to unwind hit her in the face. Rarity swallowed a large quantity of confetti and began choking on it. Applejack got hit in the face with silly string, which, in hindsight, isn’t so silly when propelled at several hundred miles per hour into your face.

As the smoke cleared and the guests got a good whiff of the sulfurous air, I rushed over and smiled as wide as I could.

“Happy birthday, girls!”

Fluttershy was curled up in a ball, crying in joy.

“Pinkie! What did ah tell ya about that darn party cannon?!” Applejack shouted.

“That it was super fun and gets you every time?”

“Ah think the exact words were ‘it’s a big gun and likely to kill us next time.’”

“But look, Fluttershy enjoyed it!”

Rarity coughed up some confetti as she got to her hooves. “Please. . .” She cleared her throat again. “Please, Pinkie, she has post traumatic stress disorder from that party cannon. Didn’t you see her at the Summer Sun Celebration when they shot the fireworks?”

“Is that why she kicked Scootaloo in the face, stole her helmet, and dove into that ditch?” I asked.

“Yes!” Rarity barked.

“Oh, it makes so much more sense now! I thought it was because the breeze caught my tail, and she thought it was a twitchy tail, and that a firework was going to fall on her head and explode and mess up her mane and she’d have to go to the salon but they’d be like ‘sorry Fluttershy, your mane is completely burn—’”

Applejack jammed her dirty hoof in my mouth. My friends always talked to me about boundaries, and yet anytime I started to talk for too long they just shoved the nearest foot or blunt object into my mouth. Was that even sanitary? I always washed my hooves before I eat; I don’t want dirt or rabbit poop in my salad. And yet, I open my mouth and bam! In goes their foot.

I bit her leg, causing her to pull her hoof out of my mouth. “Applejack, that’s nasty—”

A loud pop interrupted me as Twilight rematerialized. “What’s going on?”

Dash flew down from upstairs, peeking her head over the guardrail. “Is it safe to come out?”

“Of course it is!” I lied. I had more fun surprises planned and I couldn’t have her hiding from them. She came downstairs and was greeted by the other ponies. I had invited every single one in Ponyville to this party. As they were distracted, I went back to my party cannon and loaded the back-up charge. I wouldn’t let Twilight go home un-silly-stringed this year!

“Fire in the hole!” I shouted, hitting the button. With a loud explosion, my special super-sticky-silly-string shot out of the barrel. Twilight threw up a shield just in time to cause the detonation to splatter over every single pony in the room except for her.

“Pinkie!” She fired her horn up again, causing my party cannon to vanish.

“Awww, come on, Twilight! I make sure to only launch stuff at safe velocities after I put Mr. Cake in that coma for a month,” I explained.

Twilight laughed and trotted over to me. “Tell you what, how about I let you shoot a little silly string in my hair, and you stop assaulting my party guests? After all, you’re turning twenty-three, too! Don’t you want to eat some cake?”

“Do I ever! It’s not often all six of us have the same birthday, in fact, it only happens once a year! I baked our special cake all by myself! It’s got over twelve pounds of sugar, forty-two pounds of baker’s chocolate, half a barrel of flour, and like a bazillion eggs!” I was already bouncing on my hooves to get a taste of that delicious cake.

As ponies spread out and the party got into the normal rhythm, I took up my place beside the snacks table. Being a party planner was a full time job and meant mixing work and play. Still, when your work is play that just makes it twice as fun. I’d baked some ‘special cupcakes’ and even saved up six barrels of hard apple cider for tonight. The secret is to cut the hard apple cider with grain alcohol so you never run out.

“Um, Pinkie?” Fluttershy whispered.

“Yeah? Did you come to play pin the tail on the pony?” I asked.

“No, I, uhm. . . Please stop firing cannons around me. And, if it’s okay, I’d really like a slice of cake.”

I smiled and handed her a corner piece of the greatest cake ever baked by a pony. “Here you go. Just be sure to brush and floss after eating it! Colgate says I’m gonna get even more cavities if I don’t do so every time I eat a cake, but flossing is way too much work personally.”

“Um, okay. Thank you, Pinkie.”

“You’re welcome! Hey, Spike, how’s it going?” I asked.

He looked at me from across the room. Spike had on an apron and was carrying a broom and dustpan around. “How does it look? Twilight didn’t find your prank very funny, and now I’m stuck cleaning up the mess.”

“Hmph, what a party pooper. I’ll go talk to her.”

I headed across the improvised dance floor and found the girls enjoying some hard apple cider. I’d forgotten how many times I’d cut it with grain alcohol, but it still tasted like cider and wasn’t flammable, so how bad could it have been? I took a cup and drank it, feeling a layer of my throat get burned off on the way down. Yep, pretty much pure grain alcohol at that point.

“Sho, I wash like,” Twilight slurred. “Like coem here you chunk ohf sthallion! Ah whaz gonna let him mount me, rightsh in the midzle of clash!”

“Haha, great story, Twilight! How many have you had to drink?” I asked. She was easily the biggest lightweight in Ponyville and it was my job as the designated party-pony to ensure nopony wound up in the hospital.

“Sheven,” she responded.

“Okay, can you cast that one spell that makes all the alcohol in your blood go away? You’re gonna have one hell of a hangover at this pace!”

“Shure,” Twilight answered. She lit up her horn and I heard a large snapping sound. Seconds later, a branch two feet across fell down in front of the window, sending up a wave of dust as it landed. “Hehe, jush a little to the lefht.”

“Um, on second thought, why don’t you take a nap, Twilight?” I asked.

“Yeah, ah hate ta shee such a lightweight wastin’ my cider!” Applejack shouted. She started laughing and was joined by Dash.

“Hey, try these cupcakes Pinkie made,” she offered.

“Wait, Dash, are those the crystal cupcakes for Spike? I heard methylamphetamine gems are only healthy for dragons to eat!”

“Nonsense, they’re tasty!” Dash jumped in the air, her wings flapping like a hummingbird. “I feel like I could do a rainboom in two seconds flat!”

“Uh, maybe you’ve all had enough. This is getting out of hand.”

“You need to loosen up. Get her, AJ!” Dash shouted.

“Gettin’ who?” Applejack looked at us in confusion. She saw Dash grab a mug of hard cider, and fly towards me. “Oh!”

I felt my hock tickle, which meant I was about to be tackled. Unfortunately, Dash was faster than normal from the crystal cupcakes, and Applejack used a lasso. It was hardly a fair fight. Seconds later, I was being force-fed hard cider through a funnel, just like back in college.

I kept gasping for air as mug after mug of hard cider flowed into me, and pretty soon I was plastered. Yep, I, Pinkie Pie, was shit-faced.

“Chug! Chug! Chug!” Applejack chanted.

Finally, I squirmed to the side and threw up.

“Aww, she wash on the twelth mug too! That would’ve been a new record.”

“Guysh, I dun feel sho good,” I slurred. Mah vizion waz gettin’ blury and sho hard ti thnki.

Mah fets got up and over the soda to pillow ah nap. Is shuper spinny and fzunny and Shyflutter makz gud blankte.

I rolled over and moaned as the sunlight came in the room. My mouth tasted like pizza and orange juice. It always tastes like that after throwing up a few times, except when I burp. When I burp, I can still taste the apple cider.

My attempt to stand up failed horribly and I collapsed to the ground. I shook my head and examined myself for any further injury. My mane was still pink and fluffy, my fur still fuzzy salmon colored. My flanks still had three. . .

“Wait, where is my cutie mark?!”

I sat up, trying to ignore my headache, as I looked at my blank flank. Where I had once had a cutie mark, there was now nothing but a blank spot! I checked my other flank and found it was blank as well.

“Twilight?!” I yelled, regretting it as the loud noise hurt my ears. My mind tried to recall how many drinks I’d had last night. I remember a funnel, Dash, and Fluttershy waking up as I drooled on her chest.

“Fluttershy?” I called out. She was laying on the couch with a leg dangling over the side. I used the couch for support and walked over to her, lifting up her hind leg. She woke up as I was checking out her flank and plot for her missing cutie mark.

“Pinkie? Gah! Stop looking at my—”

“—Cutie mark! It’s gone!” I interrupted.

“Huh?” Fluttershy rolled over and looked at her side. “Oh no! Pinkie, you put it back right this instant!”

I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Fluttershy, when have I ever cutie mark-napped a pony? I didn’t make them go away. Look!” I turned to my side and showed her I was also a blank flank.

“How is this possible? What did Twilight say?”

“I haven’t found her yet. Come on.” I stumbled forward towards the stairs, and was surprised to see Fluttershy fly to the top with ease. “What the hay? How are you not hung over?”

“Oh, well, I used to win a lot of bar bets because I look like a lightweight. Over the years, I’ve built up quite a tolerance.”

“But you’re only twenty-three, and the drinking age is twenty-one!” I cried.

“Heh, only goody four-shoes don’t sneak out of their parents’ house as soon as they hit sixteen to go to parties and drink,” Fluttershy said. The way she looked at me removed all doubt: she clearly had a wild, rebellious streak as a filly.

“Wow, I learn something new about you every day.”

She blushed and looked away, remembering her own nature. “Well uh, I only did that so much to hang out with Dash. . .” After an awkward silence, she left to go upstairs.

I followed her up to Twilight’s room, taking ample time to wait for the steps in the staircase to stop moving. I’d have to talk to Twilight about that. Once I made it up there, I walked in to see Fluttershy staring in shock.

“What’s up?” I asked. As I walked around the corner, I saw her and Dash in bed together. “Oh, wow, I didn’t know they wanted to sixty-nine. Everypony knows it takes three twenty-three year olds to make sixty-nine!”

“Come on, Pinkie, let’s wake them up,” Fluttershy said.

“Okay, but I don’t wanna touch them! They’re covered in glitter!”

She rolled her eyes. “Pinkie, these are our friends. This whole party was your mess, after all.”

“Hah! I didn’t make them curl up in bed and cover each other in magic residue. I blame the alcohol!”

Fluttershy walked up and pushed Dash, causing her to roll out of bed and hit the floor. “Oops.”

“You’re mean.”

“That was an accident!” She started poking Twilight in the face. “Wake up, sleepy head!”

I walked around the bed and found Dash groggily getting to her hooves. “Ugh, Pinkie, how much of that cider did you bring?”

“Plenty. I’m pretty sure you drank two barrels all by yourself. In fact, you should be dead!” I exclaimed. “So, how are you feelin’, Dashie?”

“Uh, hungover? Why?”

“Notice anything different this morning?” I chuckled and moved, making sure she couldn’t see my flanks.

“Uh, no, why would I?” Dash asked.

“Oh, no reason. I just thought you might want to look in a mirror.”

She hit her face with a hoof and groaned. “If you drew a penis on my face again, I’m gonna clobber you.”

I fought the urge to laugh, waiting until she reached the mirror on the other side of the room.

“And there better be no mustaches either!” Dash stepped in front of the mirror. “That’s odd, you didn’t draw on me at all.”

I began laughing, drawing her gaze. Fluttershy looked at us both, and began to giggle as she realized what was going on.

“Damn, what’s so funny?” Dash asked. She began walking in circles, examining her body for what we had drawn on her. “Oh shit! Where’s my cutie mark?!” She frantically writhed around in front of the mirror, looking for the impossible vanishing cutie mark.

I rolled across the floor laughing, bumping into the bed. I could hear Twilight waking up and Fluttershy talking to her, but everything else was lost in the ruckus.

Once I settled down, I realized Twilight was talking to them. I got up and saw that Applejack and Rarity had joined us.

“So, I don’t know any spell that can remove a cutie mark. I’ll write to Celestia right away. I bet fifty bits this was Discord! He’s always causing mischief!” Twilight stated.

“I don’t know, Twilight, that seems awfully clichéd,” I replied. “I mean, Discord is automatically the root of all evil? All he wants to do is make it rain a little chocolate milk.”

“Then who do you think did this to us?” she asked.

“Well, it’s clearly a linear algorithm with a finite number of solutions as X approaches infinity, which leads me to the answer through simple process of elimination. We turned twenty-three last night, and got hammered. Seeing as how alcohol can’t cause cutie marks to vanish, clearly our turning twenty-three triggered some kind of curse to erase our destinies. I bet some sequences of narrative flashbacks or conveniently-timed spells by you and Celestia will help us learn what’s really going on here,” I explained.

“Dammit, Pinkie, can’t yah take anything serious? We all just lost our cutie marks! We’re the Elements of Harmony—Equestria is defenseless!” Applejack said.

“Exactly!” I threw my hooves in the air. “Anypony would know that cursing us is the quickest way to take over Equestria, and what better way than a curse that takes twenty-three years to activate? Can’t you see, the number twenty-three is the answer to everything!”

“I thought that was forty-two,” Twilight said.

“Don’t be a smart-ass, Twilight, it’s twenty-three!”

“I’m confused,” Rarity interrupted. “How do forty-two and twenty-three have anything to do with our situation?”

I sighed and walked up to a chalkboard, and pulled some chalk out of my hair. “Okay, imagine we had some sort of curse that would trigger at twenty-three years old. Now, we all know there are twenty dimensions in the universe, including those of time and relative dimensions in space. Not all of them are observable, and there are likely other lifeforms living in the other dimensions. When you take twenty-three and multiply it by twenty, then divide it by a score—”

“Wait,” Twilight interrupted. “You want us to multiply twenty-three by twenty and divide by twenty? Isn’t that the same as twenty-three times one? That equation makes no sense!”

“Shut up! Ugh, you’re frustrating me. Clearly the answer is twenty-three! How do you think I can pull a tuba out of my hair?”

“Pinkie, this obsession with twenty-three isn’t funny! We’re going to go find Celestia and get this sorted out. I promise you, the number twenty-three has nothing to do with this.”

“Oh yeah?” I interrupted. “Look at the time!”

“Yeah? It’s eleven,” Rarity stated.

“That’s twenty-three in military time!”

“Now you’re just seeing what you want to see and ignoring all logic,” Twilight said.

“So, you’re gonna go see Celestia by train, right? And what number is the twelve-o’clock train to Canterlot?”

“Twenty-Three,” Applejack stated. “Well, ah’ll be.”

“Exactly! If we follow the number twenty-three back to the source, we’ll find the pony who cursed us!”

Dash fell onto her haunches, looking dizzy and out of breath.

“Dash, are you okay?” Fluttershy rushed to her side.

“Please, make Pinkie stop! All this math is hurting my brain!” Dash cried.

Twilight helped Dash to her hooves. “Pinkie, you’ve done enough. Come on, Dash, let’s get you some tylenol and then go see Celestia.”

My five friends walked out of the room solemnly in search of their answers. Part of me knew for some reason the number twenty-three was evil. I would go home, making sure the number of steps it took to get to my house was a multiple of twenty-three. Then I’d make twenty-three observations about our current situation and figure out twenty-three explanations for it.

Yes, with Pinkamena Detective Pie on the case, us twenty-three year old ponies had nothing to worry about.

I couldn’t believe my luck. It was bad enough getting sent to this podunk town by Celestia to “make friends”, but now one of those friends had caused us all to lose our cutie marks.

Yes, Pinkie Pie had clearly used some form of necromancy to steal my cutie mark and dethrone me as the element of magic. I just had to figure out how she did it.

Once I got all the other ponies into the kitchen and drank a few cups of coffee, I stopped to consider our situation. I had taken thorough notes on Pinkie sense over the years and was very close to unlocking the nature of her abilities.

It was clear she had an aleph—a point in space-time where all dimensions and other points in space-time merge. I hadn’t figured out how she was able to control the aleph, as they’re only theoretically possible. Nopony has managed to prove they exist. Until now.

If Pinkie had access to an aleph, then she could have reached through to a dimension where cutie mark erasing technology exists.

“Hey, Pinkie,” I shouted, bracing myself for the auditory assault that she called speech.

“Yes Twilight? Are you finally ready to find out what’s going on? I mean, come on, everyone reading this but you has already figured it out!” Pinkie turned and winked at the coffee pot near the window.

“I don’t have time for—wait, reading this?” I lit up my horn and shut my journal, wincing a bit as the magic seemed to feel slightly off. “You’ve been reading my research notes?” I doubt she could understand half of what I wrote, but it was the principle of the matter.

“No, silly, them! But today isn’t about me, so go ahead.”

I rubbed my temples as I tried to contain my temper, and what I can only assume was the early onset of a massive migraine. “Look, Pinkie, I know you know something I just can’t figure out what it is. It could be your Pinkie sense or something else, I just want a straight answer.”

Pinkie didn’t answer, instead staring at the clock on the wall. I turned to follow her gaze, watching the second hand reach the twelve and hearing a faintly audible click as the time changed to seven twenty-three. “Well, you see it all started with—”

“No twenty-three theories!” I shouted, startling my friends. Rarity was hiding her eyes from the light using a wide-brimmed hat, easily being the most hungover out of all of us. Her eyes were so bloodshot it looked more like a subconjunctival hemorrhage than the results of a hangover. Applejack and Dash were no stranger to a hangover, getting by with just a couple pairs of sunglasses. Fluttershy, well she would jump at anything and managed to spill her coffee on the table.

“But I’m telling you ponies that our cutie marks are gone because… well, we’re not ponies!” Pinkie reached into her mane and pulled out a chalk board with several crude diagrams on it.

“Wait, do that again, get some chalk!”

Pinkie reached into her mane and pulled out a piece of chalk.

“Now pull out our cutie marks!”

She reached into her hair and pulled out her hoof. Several small colorful symbols resembling our cutie marks started to float up into the air, rapidly vanishing.

“Ugh!” I slammed my head down on the table and accepted the sharp pain as punishment for trying, yet again, to make sense of Pinkie Pie.

“So, uh, are you saying we’re changelings Pinkie? Or maybe Golems like in Daring Do and the Druish Princess?” Dash asked.

“Isn’t that the one where they tried to bottle up fresh air and sell it?” Applejack asked.

“No,” Pinkie tapped on the chalkboard. “You all remember that old mare’s tale we used to read written by Lyra, right?”

“Animorphs?” Dash replied.

“Poner Rangers?” Applejack answered.

“Mmph uugh mmmm,” Rarity mumbled, sounding better than she looked.

“Furry Bedroom Adventures?” Fluttershy responded without thinking, blushing shortly afterward as I raised my head and stared at her in disbelief.

“Anthropology,” I answered. “Yeah I remember that story, not being very good or scientifically accurate.”

“Come on, Twilight, not this again! You’ve got no imagination, or sense of adventure! It was a great story of how Lyra found herself and her true friends—”

“It was a shameless self-insert, Dash,” I interrupted. “If I wanted bad fan fiction I’d invent a means of mass communication to allow everypony to share their ideas. Literature is an art, a science, a means to communicate the deepest darkest thoughts and questions that face ponykind.”

“It’s a story!” Dash countered. “You’re supposed to read it and enjoy it, and I don’t know, have fun.”

“Girls, ah don’t think this is getting us anywhere. What’s this got to do with us, Sugarcube?” Applejack asked.

“Oh, well I think we’re turning into humans!” Pinkie replied.

I found myself grinding my teeth and had to stop for a moment to reply. At times, it was evident Pinkie Pie was just making stuff up in some attempt to keep the spotlight on herself. “So, our cutie marks vanish, therefore, we’re becoming humans?”

“Well, there’s also the hairless pink splotches appearing in our fur.”

“That’s acute dermatitis, likely a reaction to increased cortisol in our systems, but I imagine that further testing could be warranted…” I opened my journal back up and started to jot down some notes. If only I had some willing—or unwilling—test subjects I could really get to the bottom of this mystery.

“I’m thinking next the magic and ability to fly starts to go, some fingers and toes, and voila! Hairless ugly apes!” Pinkie stood on her hind legs and for a moment, her body reshaped itself into a cartoonish human

“Look, there has to be a logical explanation to explain this, and we’ll be hearing back from Celestia at any moment. So, girls, here are my current top three explanations.”

I looked around the room to make sure I have everypony’s attention. Rarity had even managed to look up at me from under the brim of her hat, eyes bloodshot. Applejack had found herself a bottle of hard cider and was drinking it. “Really AJ? More alcohol?”

“Little hair o’ the dog is the perfect thing to nurse a hangover,” she countered.

“Okay…. Then, the first plausible explanation is that we’ve been affected by a hitherto unknown disease which causes ponies to lose their cutie marks.” I glared at Pinkie to pre-empt whatever nonsense she was about to say. “Second, is that Discord has broken free and stolen our Cutie Marks in order to sever our link to the Elements of Harmony. Third is that I drank myself into a coma and am dreaming, and at any moment Luna will appear to inform me that I’ll never wake up and that they’re going to have to pull the plug.”

“Whoa, that last one is dark… I’ll have to use it for one of my stories sometime,” Dash stated. “I mean, if we’re losing our special talents, I’m gonna need a new dayjob.”

“Writing isn’t a job, it’s a hobby,” I replied.

“Come on, Twilight, humans doesn’t even crack the top three? I’m telling you, this is exactly what happened in that mildly interesting story Anthropology!” Pinkie’s ear started to twitch, accompanied by a shaking rump.

I had no clue what this meant, nor would I have cared if I did with the way this headache was starting to throb right behind my eyes. I heard a loud belch from the other room and then a scream of pain. Pinkie’s entire body was shaking now, this one I knew. “Doozie?”

“Y-y-y-yep!” Pinkie said as she bounced into the next room.

Before I could follow into the next room I heard a click as I stepped on a loose floorboard, and focusing my magic I teleported out of the way of a confetti mine. Nopony was following me close enough to be hit by the trap, thank Celestia. “Pinkie!” I growled at her as I looked around for other loose floorboards. “Now really isn’t the time.”

“Oh I hid that there last week, I thought sure you would have found it by now. Anyway, you need to come help Spike!”

My friends made it into the room only slightly after me to a horrific site. Curled up on the floor, halfway out of Spike’s mouth, was my brother. His body was half tan and hairless, and his forelegs ended in misshapen curled up fingers. His horn was gone and his hair was a short dark brown. Between his hind legs was an even more hideously deformed penis, barely the size of a foals. Everything further back on his body, including the rest of his legs, was in Spike’s mouth.

“Shining! What happened?” I quickly began to pull on Spike while Dash and Applejack pulled on Shining, until we’d seperated the two and enabled Spike to breathe again.

“Twily…. It was Celestia…” He caught his breath and curled up into a ball, half-pony, half-monstrosity. “She was trying to return a reply to your letter but her magic is on the fritz, her horn was barely two inches long. The spell hit me instead of the scroll.”

“Oh no,” I began to pace around, mind racing. “It’s affecting Celestia too? If she loses her magic, we may not be able to fix this…”

“You’re… you’re still okay,” Shining reached out and ran his boney fingers through my mane.

“We’ve already lost our cutie marks, how did you get so bad so quickly?” I asked.

“I don’t know, it seemed to affect us quicker at the Castle.”

“What could it mean?” I chewed on my lip, thinking it over. “You are older than me, and this happened on my twenty-third birthday. Could the curse be making up for lost time with older ponies? This would imply younger ponies would be affected slower or not at all, but further testing will be required and I will need some test subjects and a control group… not to mention parchment, quills, test tubes, oh, this scale of an experiment will be exhilarating!”

“You and Pinkie may be the only two amused by this dreadful situation,” Rarity said.

“I certainly am having a blast!” Pinkie added. “Why, Shining is 23 months older than you isn’t he Twilight? I’ve got a diagram with lots of string that explains everything.”

“Hmm, save it for later Pinkie… I think the only thing we can do, should do, is go on a grand adventure to Canterlot. We’ll bring the Elements and combine my power with Celestia and Luna before it’s too late to fix this! So pack up your things, girls, we’re going to Canterlot!”

Spike coughed and rolled over, “yeah I’m fine. Thanks for asking…”

You begin to feel grumpy as you read the story in your hooves. The alternative, boarding this train without some manner of distraction, is beginning to look better. Surely you could have found something better to do than read this story on this of all days. Daring Do and the Curse of the Bovine Fluid Harvesters is one of your favorite stories. However, given the curse currently turning you into some hybrid pony-ape abomination, it’s hitting a little close to home.

So far you’ve lost the ability to fly, and almost all your fur is gone. Your tail and mane are cropped short, and turning brown like a wilting plant. The only way this day could get worse would be if your fellow Wonderbolts could see you sitting here on the train, reading a book, looking like one of Applejack’s pigs dressed in bad Rainbow Dash cosplay.

Luckily you don’t have to finish the particularly colorful chapter on Daring Do’s rapidly growing teats when Rarity clears her throat.

“So, Dash, what are you reading?” Rarity asked.

You fold the book shut. “Nothing important, just trying to keep my mind off things. I thought for sure this whole adventure to find Celestia and save Equestria would be more… interesting.”

Rarity glances out the window at the mountain passing by. “Yes, well I suppose a four hour train ride to Canterlot isn’t anypony’s idea of a good time, certainly not now that my glorious mane and horn are… are… gone!”

She began to cry, and you decided to comfort her. “Hey, it’s not that bad! You’re no uglier than the rest of us!”

“Ya’ll always did lack subt… gra… hmm… what’s the word…” Applejack rubbed her head with one of the small nubs that had started growing out of her hoof.

“Subtlety?” you offer.

“Yep! That. Maybe ah reckon ya’ll can talk about some fiction or movies or something to taken our minds off of it?” Applejack asked.

It was hard to be sure, but you think Applejack sounded a bit more illiterate and country than usual. Where the rest of you were getting scrawny and gangly, she was forming a nice round belly. While your face was pink and squishy, hers was covered in coarse patches of brown fur.

“My favorite movie is Deadpool!” Pinkie stated. “The way he is just so random is awesome!”

“I’m rather fond of that fan fiction somepony wrote about me killing anypony who disrespected me or my friends in a secret murder basement,” Rarity admitted. “Oh could you imagine anything so ridiculous? But, I was rather fond of the way the Rarity in the story looked out for Sweetie Belle, who in turn looked out for her daughter.”

“Hmm,” you said. “I think I remember that one, but it’s not nearly as horrifying as the one where I got found living in a box by a hobo.”

“Or the one where I cooked you up into some cupcakes Dash! Though, I do have twenty-three non-vegan high-gluten pony-based recipes I could have used if the situation arose… so that story wasn’t so far fetched!” Pinkie admitted.

You roll your eyes and look over at Twilight, who is scribbling furiously into a notebook. She’s been slower to change than the rest of you. “What’s your favorite story Twilight?”

“Oh, the one where I have nasty sex with the reincarnated not-evil Nightmare Moon of course,” Twilight deadpanned.

“I haven’t heard of that one,” you reply.

“If it exists, there’s shitty fan fiction of it, rule 23!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Yeah right,” you said. “If that was true then… well… some asshole would write a story about Trixie brutally torturing and sexually abusing Twilight into her pet, but it was actually a changeling all along!”

“It’s been done!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“What? No way… what about that one stallion Rarity met at the Gala, anyone write a story about him spending fifty days doing horrible things to somepony?” you ask.

“Yep!”

“Um… Big Mac raping the Cutie Mark Crusaders to death?”

“Hmm…” Pinkie thought for a moment. “Yes!”

You gasp in shock. “Wow, there are really some fucked up people out there writing pony fiction. For what it’s worth, I stick to more wholesome legitimate writing, like the forbidden love story between Mayor Mare and Granny Smith.”

“Oh, I haven’t read that one,” Twilight said. “And ever since I got you hooked on books with that stay in the hospital, you know I’ve been your number one fan Dash.”

“Yeah, I haven’t finished it yet… and with this whole curse thing, I’m not sure I’ll be able to.” You sigh, “it would have been awesome! My masterpiece! And here we are using the most boring mode of transportation invented by ponies to visit Celestia.”

“Well, trains aren’t all boring. I quite enjoyed the time you couldn’t figure out how to use the restroom and coated the back half of the train car in filth,” Fluttershy said.

“Well that’s exactly why I don’t like trains. Who needs four levers on a toilet? I enjoy more practical things, like short skirts on mares, and explosions!” you respond.

The conversation dies down for a bit and you take a moment to examine your body. You are as alarmed as earlier that you seem to be smooth as a barbie doll between your legs, save for a sensitive bump that is sprouting some hair. It would seem that you didn’t even have the good fortune to turn into a female ape, and instead are turning into a stallion, or man-ape, or whatever they’re called.

“So… you worried for Shining Armor?” you ask.

“Nah, Spike’s watching him and he’s not cursed. If Celestia can’t fix this, we’ll head back and begin experimenting for a cure. If Spike is immune, I can try giving Shining Armor some of his blood… and since my magic seems to be fading slowly, I might even be able to try a spell or two dozen on him,” Twilight explains.

“Hmm, look we’re here!” Pinkie pointed out the window.

“Finally!” you shout. You head to the door, like a cosplaying pig, and open it for the other ponies.

Outside you see a train platform full of writhing hairless apes. Smoke rises from several buildings, and the humans are moaning and slowly shuffling towards the train. The power is out. Looking in both directions you see hordes of humans approaching, and you’re unable to fly away from it this time.

“What do we do girls?” you ask. “We have to get off this platform and to Celestia!”

Twilight points. “Look over there, we’ll find safety inside the terminal!”

She points directly to a set of double doors that says “Don’t Human Open Inside”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” you remark, as clever, witty, and original as ever.

And together, you and your friends take off towards the doors.