Josey, Rainbow Dash, Spritelight, and Turkey?
There was a Josephine in my math class, and I could imagine that being shortened to Josey, but the other names were way out there.
Then again, these were horses staring me down. Talking horses which had flown through the sky not a moment ago.
"My name's April," I answered in a voice that sounded disturbingly tiny to me.
The large horse named Josey nodded slowly and smiled. "It is nice to meet you, April. Could you tell us where we are?"
I shrugged and pointed down at the building we were standing on. "This is St. George's, a girls-only boarding school."
"What's that?" the one named Rainbow Dash wondered, and the Pegasus beside it whispered something in her ear.
"Oh! Must be a human thing," she decided as if that explained everything.
Josey turned her head away from me and all horses perked their ears up as a howling sound could be heard in the distance, and I turned to look in the direction of the sound as well.
"The sea of flesh is approaching," Josey muttered, to herself more than anyone. "We don't have much time. April, dear. How many people are in the building below us?"
"Josey, you can't be serious!" the Unicorn protested as if the question was a curse or something.
The large horse turned to face the Unicorn and stared her down. "We can't let these girls become just another number now we're here. If we had any more time left I would not ask this of you."
The Unicorn snorted in return, but soon looked away from the larger one. "Fine..."
With the large horse named Josey turning her attention back upon me, I realised I had not answered her question yet.
I scratched the back of my neck a bit. "I don't know... around a hundred people total? That's counting teachers and students both."
"Less than in the mall," said the Pegasus named Turkey enigmatically.
"I know that, Turkey, thank you," the Unicorn replied as some sparks started to come off her horn.
"How do we get down from here, April dear?" Josey wondered, and I pointed at the door leading to the maintenance staircase.
"Through there, but it's locked," I suggested, watching the sparkling horn on the unicorn with considerable interest. "Is that normal?"
Josey ignored my question and instead turned to the pegasus not named Turkey. "Rainbow?"
"I'm on it!" came the eager reply.
They immediately set in motion to the door, turned around just in front of it, and promptly bucked her back hooves into the door proper.
It splintered apart the moment her hooves made contact with it, chunks of wood falling down the stairs behind it with a loud clattering which I was sure the headmistress would have heard clearly on any other day.
The wailing of the girls below, taken by the panic of the obvious apocalypse come down upon them, could clearly be heard from the staircase entry.
The one called Rainbow Dash pointed a hoof at it. "After you."
A wet wing fell over my shoulders and I found Josey having moved up to my side.
"Would you lead the way for us, please?" she asked, and my addled brain took me forward as if I was being compelled to by an outside force before I could answer.
The ponies followed a few paces behind me as I descended down the stairs to the third floor.
Most of the students were praying wherever they could find room to pray; sitting on their beds in their dorm rooms, in the open doorways to their dorm rooms, or in random locations throughout the hallway.
It was the latter group that first noticed the ponies following me, and a panicked pandemonium started as they all tried to get as much distance from the bloodstained group as possible.
"The four horsemen!" one cried out, and the avalanche of bodies trying to get out of our way was only interrupted when the Unicorn sent a flash of lightning or something past my left shoulder and into the group.
When my eyes could see again from the blinding flash of light, the first group of girls had been transformed into a group of ponies, still dressed in their school uniforms, awkwardly trying to figure out how to stand on their newly gained hooves.
I stared in shock as Josey and Spritelight pushed past me, one after the other, and went around from room to room.
More magic flashes quickly followed as they found more girls hiding, until they returned to the staircase with the entire floor now a mess of bawling ponies from normal ones to pegasi to Unicorns themselves.
And they were all pastel coloured...
"Shall we move to the next floor, girls?" Josey suggested, and once again I found myself compelled to lead the way.
My mind was suspended in an odd blank state where I knew what I was doing, but I couldn't formulate a thought or emotion to explain whether I was feeling good or bad about it.
A strange state of ennui in which I was just going through the motions as I was prompted to by Josey, my emotions blocked off so they could not overtake me.
The process repeated itself on the floor below, and the classrooms on the first floor were similarly taken care of.
"The headmistress' room, mess hall, and communal hall are below," I offered to the ponies following me as I walked down the first floor stairs with them in tow. "There's probably a lot of students in the communal hall and the headmistress may be there as well."
"Take us there first, then?" Josey suggested, and I turned a right when we got to the ground floor, pointing at the double doors up ahead.
"We have mass in there every Sunday. They're probably praying for their lives," I spoke flatly.
As Josey and Spritelight walked into the hall, I stayed behind with Turkey and Rainbow Dash.
Turkey nudged my side with a wing, and I looked in her direction.
"Hey, are you ok April?" she asked, genuine concern in her own voice.
I looked around myself at the chaos; magic being thrown around, people being turned into ponies, prayer to be saved from the pending apocalypse changing to prayer to not be found.
I turned my head to look down at my bloodstained clothes; the uniform of the school which I hated drenched in red to the extent where the logo was barely visible against the rest of the fabric.
I finally turned my attention over at the talking Pegasus pony, my face a blank slate of ennui, and just shook my head quietly to answer her question.
She nodded slowly and leaned her head in to nuzzle at me. "You will be, trust me. You're saving all these people an..."
A loud BANG was heard behind us, and we all jumped in response.
"What was that?" Rainbow Dash shouted.
"Was that a gunshot?" Turkey asked in sudden terror.
I just turned and stared in the direction the sound had been coming from. "T..that came from the headmistress' office."
Josey rushed by me from the other direction in which she had gone not a moment after I had said it, sending a bolt of lightning into the closed door to the headmistress' office a moment before she would have hit them.
The doors exploded into a hail of splinters as she passed through it and disappeared into the room.
As the gunshot took down my expertly crafted emotional walls, panic overtook me and I quickly followed the horse into the room, hoping beyond hope that I was not going to find what my imagination brought to mind.
I ran in with Turkey and Rainbow Dash hot on my heels, Spritelight following a moment later as she returned from the communal hall, Josey stood blocking off the view to the headmistress' desk with her large form and outstretched wings.
"Get out," she spoke as tears started to leak down her cheeks, revealing the yellow fur under the redness covering her.
I stood nailed to the ground as I spotted the redness on the walls behind Josey, even with her attempting to shield us from it, but then moved back into the hall again as Rainbow Dash nudged me.
My mind was a mess; emotions fighting over control, the walls which held them shattered from the recent events.
Josey needed a minute to join us, and used her magic to repair the door she had broken down moments before as if it had never been opened in the first place.
"This is up to the local authorities to handle if we can get this world corrected," she spoke, then turned to the last remaining humans and the humans-turned-pony who had gathered in the hall upon hearing the shot.
"Listen closely!" she shouted in a voice I was sure carried up to the top floor of the building, and potentially the gym as well. "There is a flood coming this way and the only way you will survive it is to do exactly as we say."
Rainbow Dash nudged me off to the side with one of her wings to let Spritelight move past me and the Unicorn's magic immediately hit the group of humans that had come from the mess hall.
I could only watch the last of my fellow students turned into multicoloured pastel ponies as I had watched the others change before them.
"I want you all to gather in the communal room," Josey continued, pointing a hoof in the direction of the hall.
"You will have to move the chairs there due to your new bodies, but it will only be a momentary issue. We will create a doorway for you all to escape to safety," she continued.
"Take nothing with you; anything you try to bring with you will not make it to the other side," the horse concluded quizzically.
Dazed and confused, the ponies in the hallway started to walk into the communal hall as instructed.
Turkey walked up to offer the stumbling ones some advice on how to use their hooves, how not to poke eyes out with Unicorn horns, and how to fold Pegasus wings so they would be comfortable.
Still pressed against the wall by Rainbow Dash's wing, I could do nothing but watch this happen while my mind trying to reconcile with reality.
Did the headmistress really... Josey's reaction was clear enough. And all these ponies...
"Were you once human as well?" I asked of Rainbow Dash, who lowered her wing to give me some breathing room and shook her head.
"Oh no, not me! Spritelight and I are from Equestria. We've been ponies all our lives, as far as I am aware," she explained.
I noted her words and pointed at Josey. "And her?"
"Spritelight got to her, yes," Rainbow Dash nodded.
Spritelight snorted at Rainbow's explanation while looking up at me. "It's a long story. I thought you humans needed to be ponies to survive, but then all hell broke loose."
"Which is what we are here to try and correct," Josey offered in a soft voice. "I will go set up the portal."
I watched her follow the students-turned-ponies into the communal hall, and heard her call out to those already present even as more ponies awkwardly made their way down the stairs from the floors above.
Spritelight continued to size me up, and I saw the sparks on her horn a moment before a flash of light hit me.
"I'm sorry for this," I heard her say even as I felt my balance shift and I blindly fell to my four hooves...
