From the moment they’d set foot on the island and realized it was not just an island full of ponies, but an island full of My Little Ponies, Julie had been practically bouncing with excitement. She was sure she’d had a dream almost like this before -- only without the need to rescue Rarity and without all of the other people around. It’d been just her and her siblings, then, but this was better, even if her siblings weren’t there with her.
It’d been easier for her to fly than walk -- and it was good for them to have a different vantage point among the group, too -- once they set off.
At least, for a while.
Julie first noticed something wasn’t right when she started to slow down, like she was suddenly heavier, or dragging something heavy behind her. Then her wings popped out, and Julie realized she wasn’t flying anymore. She was falling, and she quickly landed in a heap on the forest floor.
“Ow.”
Reyes Vidal had little knowledge of the My Little Pony ouvre, having been a few centuries in the future of its full popularity, but he’d read the briefings and listened to his teammates who had a semblance of confidence that they knew what they were looking at. The kidnapping of Rarity seemed a little small-time for their manpower in his opinion (which he kept to himself). Perhaps Rarity had value other than merely “being a wonderful friend”, such as sensing treasure or something he could actually see as being useful. He wondered what Sara Ryder and her AI thought of the place. Either way, he’d relaxed - slightly - as they travelled through the beautiful forests of the island, relying on the young blonde with a truly appropriate last name to scout ahead due to her abilities of flight.
Her abilities to suddenly fall were also on point; Reyes winced at the sound of her crashing into the underbrush and headed over to assess the damage. “Are you all right? That was spectacular,” he began, his accented voice a combination of concerned and amused, but it died away as he saw that Julie Power had been replaced by a pony. A colorful pony. “Uh.”
“I…” Julie tried to reach up to push the red and yellow hair out of her face, only she couldn’t reach. And since when did she have red and yellow --
Her eyes widened. Why was her arm light blue and shaped like a horse’s leg? Her center of gravity was different, too, and when she tossed her hair back, she got a glimpse of what was making her feel off-balance: wings. Farther back, there was a long tail, the same color as her hair. “I’m a pony? You’re seeing this too, right? I’m - I’m a pony?”
“I--” it was impossible to deny or ignore, so Reyes just took a breath, accepted that this was now a thing in his life that could feasibly happen and meant nothing bad about his sanity, and answered in the positive: “Yes, you are-- suddenly a pony. That has the capability of talking. Which--” It must be the island, he realized. This was the land of the My Little Pony denizens, and something about the magic was reaching out to claim more members.
“Your head, it is not affected?” he suddenly clarified with a frown. Turning into a pony was one thing, but muddled memories was quite another. If this was going to compromise their field agents, it was going to be a problem.
“Um.” Julie was still trying to orient herself to her new center of gravity, so she didn’t answer right away, focusing instead on trying to stand up. She felt like a baby horse, all knobby knees and no balance.
When she got up, she looked over at Reyes. “I think I’m okay.” She tossed her head just because she could, and laughed. “I’m good. I mean, I’m blue and my hair is red and yellow, and I think walking is gonna be a little weird, but I don’t feel dizzy or anything.”
Well, that was one boon, at least. Reyes relaxed - a little, enough to where his smirk didn’t look a little tight. “Until you are able to fly again,” he said, “I remain unimpressed.”
Some people were motivated by positive vibes and pep talks. Reyes had always been better at issuing challenges. Besides - he really wanted to see if those itsy-bitsy wings were functional.
Julie gaped at him -- as much as she could, as a pony -- with as much outrage as she could muster. “This is unimpressive?” she scoffed, pawing at the ground with a hoof. “I’m magnificent!”
Or at least as much of her as she could see certainly looked rather striking. “But fine. Let me see. I’ve never had wings before.” It couldn’t be any different than learning how to fly with her powers had been, right? Just with more flapping? So she narrowed her eyes in concentration and gave her wings a few flaps, testing them out until she could feel some lift under her feet. She didn’t look back as she took a running start and leapt into the air, but the wings only held her for thirty seconds before she fumbled her coordination. Slightly defeated, she trotted back over to Reyes. “I’ll work on it. Should we find the others? We should probably tell them about… my predicament.”
“It was a noble effort, your magnificence. And better than I could do,” he added, because while Reyes teased, he was rarely mean. Mean was for people who didn’t have the balls to kill people, he thought. With a nod toward the camp, he took point beside her, watchful as ever. Julie clearly was going to be some kind of threat once she got her bearings in her new body, but in the meantime he’d be more comfortable assuming that behind every tree was an agent waiting to strike.
“I don’t know if we have to tell them, honestly,” he said after a beat, and grinned. “...you’re not exactly subtle.”
“Okay,” Julie snorted, “you’ve got a point there. This is probably more show than tell.” She was trying hard not to question why this had happened, or how. Was it Atlantis magic? Or My Little Pony magic? Could they turn her back?
That last question made her shiver, noticably. “I hope this is just temporary.”
“So far, everything else has been.” It was as best as he could do by way of reassuring, because magic was something he had no experience in.. but Atlantis’s bullshit was beginning to be familiar. “Call me selfish,” he added lightly, “but I hope it is not contagious.”
“Aw!” Julie bounced a little. “But you’d be so cute!” She had a feeling she knew exactly how he’d react to that idea, and that was why she said it in the first place.
She had another thought, then, and she trotted ahead of him a little to hide her grin. “Hope you didn’t just jinx it!” she called out over her shoulder. She doubted it was even possible for him to cause it himself, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t put the idea in his head.
There’s no such thing ‘jinx’ Reyes thought to himself. Silently. Just in case he might jinx it. This was Atlantis, after all, and it seemed it had a personal vendetta against him, having already turned him into a pumpkin once and produced several silly reactions at parties.
“I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” he returned cheesily after her, and with a sigh, picked up his pace and followed her to the camp. Ponies could move fast.