Emily watched the small horses leave the ship, trying to keep her jaw from hanging open. She hadn’t been totally serious when she suggested Kato use his powers to communicate, but that didn’t stop it from happening. And much to her surprise, it’d actually worked. At least, it seemed to. She didn’t know exactly what they were heading off to do, but it didn’t seem hostile.

She shook her head, reminding herself that Kato was alone, and started heading back. The smooth walls of the spaceship were oddly comforting now, the only think familiar to her in an unknown situation. The irony wasn’t lost on her. It might’ve even been funny if it weren’t happening to her.

When she got back to the room that the rest of her team was in, she found Kato kneeling over Sam, who was starting to wake up. Emily approached the two slowly, feeling the bone in her leg starting to hurt again. If she didn’t get off it soon, she was going to damage it further. She was sure that whatever fighting strength the squad still had would come in useful at some point.

She put her back against the wall, sliding down as she took weight off the injury. It continued to heal, reminding her of something that was now very important.

“Hey, Kato, you’ve served with a few of these guys before, right? Any idea what kind of gene mods they’ve got? I wouldn’t worry about it normally, but knowing our hand here is pretty important.”

Kato looked up from Sam, nodding as he turned the man’s head to the side. Sam didn’t seem lucid yet, but he was in the process of waking up.

“I believe I know a few. This man has muscular fiber density improvement, and…” Kato paused, pulling a flashlight from his belt and turning Sam’s head back to him before waving the flashlight over his eyes. Emily watched as the dark circles in the middle of the irises dilated quickly. “…hyper reactive pupils. There may be more, but I can’t tell like this. It will be easier to know when they wake up.”

Emily sighed. The longer they waited, the more danger they would be in.

“Why aren’t these on dog tags or something? It’d save an awful lot of trouble.”

Kato smiled as he placed Sam back down gently, saying in a joking voice, “That’s the ‘secret’ part of XCOM. The less information you risk, the less you lose. Wouldn’t want names of members to fall into the wrong hands, would you?”

He turned and looked at Zoe, continuing to speak.

“She also has modified muscle fiber density, and mimetic skin. It’s strange, it seems to fluctuate when she isn’t consciously controlling it.”

Emily looked to see what he meant, and was able to just catch a deceptively light-colored patch drift across Zoe’s face, making her exposed skin look like some kind of window for a moment. Whatever her skin mimicked, it wasn’t the metal behind her. Emily wondered if she was looking into the girl’s dream, then shook the thoughts off. It didn’t matter now.

“What about the others?”

Kato looked, then pointed to the nearest of the other two. “I don’t believe Miles has any gene mods. Louis has adaptive bone marrow, like you.”

Emily nodded, and tried to relax. On the other side of the metal she leaned against, there were technicolor horses straight out of a child’s storybook, but she tried to block that knowledge out. She just needed to think for a moment, something that was hard to do at the moment. Her eyes drifted shut, and she was suddenly aware of how tired she was. Being knocked out was exhausting. Her head started to slump over, but before she could fall asleep she jerked her head back up.

Assuming these little horses did like Kato said they were doing, trying to help, then the only immediate danger was those aliens coming back. Kato said he’d warned about them as well, but didn’t know if the magnitude of the danger they posed had sunk in. They would watch out, but in the end, Emily doubted that they would have anything that could give the aliens pause. She was fairly sure she’d seen a few candles in the windows of houses outside. It didn’t speak well for the state of their technology.

Then again, the purple one had demonstrated telekinetic abilities like it was nothing. It’d even seemed surprised by her and Kato’s startled reactions. That told her that if it was used to powers like that, then maybe they were even common among this species. How it would measure up to an ethereal, though, she couldn’t imagine. Kato said that he’d felt similar abilities in the green one, so maybe it was a more common trait in them than in humans.

Did that make them a threat? Telekinesis was advanced for humans, but mind control was on about the same level, and it’d seemed afraid of that at first. She guessed that she was lucky Kato had been able to make the intrinsically hostile act turn into an attempt at communication.

The sound of something tapping against the metal floor made both Emily’s and Kato’s head turn, and they spied more ponies walking timidly through the first section of the ship, eyes darting around nervously and bodies shaking. The purple one from before led them, and the green one wasn’t too far behind.

In addition to the ones from before, there were twelve new ones, walking in pairs, carrying what looked like stretchers between them. As they got closer, Emily could see that they weren’t single stretchers, but two per pair that had been hastily fastened together. By the looks of them, a single one would barely be half a normal person’s height.

There was something vaguely amusing about the idea of ponies frantically tying stretchers together, but she didn’t feel like smiling. She was just glad that something was going to go right.

She made a grunt to get Kato’s attention, and nodded towards the door. Kato looked up, and stood as the ponies came into view.

The purple one was first in the room, and seemed to give some encouragement to the others before approaching them, making a few gestures towards the ponies carrying the stretchers while speaking what sounded like gibberish.

The other ponies filed in by pairs, keeping their eyes fixed on the two humans as they did so, watching for any sudden movements. As each pair entered, they stopped behind the purple one, waiting for further commands. The green unicorn Kato had used his mind-control on seemed to want to get closer to them, but the purple one kept it back.

Emily glanced over at Kato, puzzled. If they were waiting for something, they were doing a poor job at conveying whatever it was. Emily decided to speak, hoping Kato was on the same page she was.

“So are we just supposed to load them up, or…?”

“I don’t know. We might as well try.”

He knelt over Sam again, putting his hands under his arms and lifting. Emily joined him, grabbing Sam’s feet and lifting him off the ground.

A team of awkward and scared ponies approached, and flinched as they placed Sam on their stretcher. Emily watched carefully for a moment as they adjusted to the weight before sidling off to the side, letting another group come forwards. As the rest of her team was placed on stretchers, Emily continued to examine the ponies as best she could.

The mixture of normal ones, unicorns, and winged ones seemed to lack any kind of pattern. There did appear to be some differences between the sexes, with some being more sturdily built and others more slender, but which was which she couldn’t tell. She wasn’t a biologist, and the topic of determining an alien’s sex never came up during her conversations with scientists back at base. What she did notice, though, were the markings near the ponies’ hindquarters.

Every single one had them, and they all seemed to bear familiar symbology, red crosses or syringes, things that denoted the field of medicine. She recalled that the hulking red beasts that were mutons had also been found to tattoo certain designs on their bodies, but these were different. All of the marks were in the same place, and displayed similar themes. Until there was a smoother way to communicate, it would be impossible to tell what practices like that meant.

While the ponies carrying the stretchers had similar marks, the other two had quite different looking designs. The purple one from before, apparently some kind of leader, had what looked vaguely like stars. Emily could only guess at the significance of that. The green one had what looked like a harp.

When everyone had been loaded up, Kato glanced over at one of the two remaining stretchers before looking at Emily’s leg. Before he could say anything, Emily cut him off, saying, “Don’t even think about it. I’m not going to lie down and let horses carry me. My leg is fine for now, I can walk.”

The green pony had gotten incrementally closer the whole time, inching past the purple one, eyes fixed on the nearest human. That was, at the moment, Kato. It still had that creepy smile on its face, and Emily was starting to get the feeling that it was planning something.

She brushed it off as paranoia, and tried to gesture towards the exit. The purple pony stared back at her nervously, tilting its head slightly, before slowly turning and leading the way out. Emily and Kato waited for the others to leave first before following. As they stepped towards the door, Emily drew her gun again, and motioned for Kato to do the same. If this was a trap, even if that was unlikely, they wouldn’t be taken out without a fight.

The air was warm compared to the inside of the ship, and there was still a small crowd outside.

“Jesus Christ, they look like soap mascots.”

She hadn’t meant it as a joke, but Kato’s laugh made her realize that it was a somewhat silly thing to say. That was what the variety of colors reminded her of, commercials for toilet bowl cleaners and dish soap.

The purple one was addressing the crowd, making a series of gestures, meanwhile Emily and Kato kept careful watch on anything else that could be a trap. The aliens were nowhere to be seen, and there was no sign of hostility from the ponies. Emily did notice that the unicorn with the harp tattoo was by her side, squinting at her armor and mumbling to itself.

It was a few seconds before the small convoy started to move again, now with the eyes of every onlooker firmly glued on the humans. Emily noted that all of them seemed to have marks on their flanks, but she couldn’t make out any theme among them. They were too random.

Her head started to hurt again, and she realized she was on the verge of breaking down again. She was going to have to calm down, and simply go with the flow of things until she had a better idea of what was happening.

She took a few deep breaths, and closed her eyes as she walked.

Chrysalids were hellish monsters, abduction sites were grim reminders of humanity’s stature in the universe, but this was something far harder to digest. Every situation before always had a clear goal; eliminate contacts, protect VIPs, or retrieve artifacts. Even getting back to the Skyranger in one piece was good enough for her. Now there was nothing.

“Kato, we need to figure out what we’re doing here. To do that, we need to communicate with these things, and mind-control isn’t going to cut it long term. We don’t have the tech to get beyond basic gestures at the moment, and I’d say even using those is risky. There’s no guarantee that they might take something the wrong way. We have to at least try working out some better way. Writing and speaking are out the window entirely, but some of them do seem psychic. Do you think you can use that to your advantage?”

She cracked open her eyes, and found Kato nodding.

“Good. That’s our first objective. With any luck, they’ll be just as interested as us in that. Then we can help kill the aliens if they need it, and find a way back home. Sound good?”

“Yes. I’m happy to see you taking charge. Good leadership is important. I think I am in good hands.”

She held her sigh back, trying not to show her relief. Overthinking was deadly in extreme situations, and this certainly qualified. She needed to keep herself disciplined, and remember her goals.

The strange procession continued through the town, until they eventually reached a large, multi-story building. More ponies were waiting outside, and as the group got closer, the purple pony that led them started to call out to them.

It wasn’t long before Emily and Kato found themselves in what appeared to be a hospital room, with six rather short beds, and surrounded by what they assumed to be doctors and nurses, or at least whatever equivalent they had. They chattered hurriedly among themselves as they tried to get good looks at the unconscious humans.

Emily supposed that she couldn’t blame them, she’d been eager to see autopsies and examinations of aliens too. That didn’t mean that she was alright with the room being crowded while she had so little idea of what was going on.

“Kato, we’ve got to clear this out. You can’t get anything done with these things hanging over your shoulder, right?”

He nodded, and Emily brought her alloy cannon to her shoulder. However, she made sure that its safety was on, and that she wasn’t aiming the weapon directly at anything. A general violation of the rules, perhaps, but one she felt necessary. As it turned out, brandishing a weapon was a fairly effective means of getting attention in spite of the fact they didn’t know just what kind of damage it could do. If they did, Emily imagined that they would already be gone.

As eyes went to her, and ponies started to shuffle backwards, she waved towards the door and walked forward. It took a few moments for the ponies to get the idea, but they started to funnel out. The last two to hesitate in the doorway were the purple pony, with both a horn and wings, and the green unicorn with the harp mark. They looked like they didn’t want to leave, and were still worried about the humans.

Emily paused, wondering if getting rid of them was wise. Getting rid of the others was simply to give themselves breathing room, but two little ponies wouldn’t inhibit their examinations of their companions.

She glanced back at Kato, who was already resuming his work on the rest of the team.

“Do you care if these two stick around? I’m thinking that just shutting them out might make them a little suspicious.”

He glanced back over his shoulder, looking at the two ponies for a moment before shrugging.

“As long as you keep them company. Maybe you can find a way to talk. That would help our situation.”

Emily holstered her gun and turned back to the ponies uncertainly before ushering them back into the room.

Twilight’s eyes widened as the human motioned for her and Lyra to come back into the room. She was hesitant to go, considering that it had just seemed to threaten use of its weapon to clear the room, but Lyra didn’t share her concerns. She was quick to trot back into the room, not giving a second of thought to the danger she could be putting herself in.

With another twinge of annoyance, Twilight followed. She hadn’t imagined Lyra as such an impulsive pony, but she supposed she couldn’t fully fault her enthusiasm. Even after they had taken control of her body, she was willing to go to their side and try to learn more about them.

Twilight’s eyes flicked to the window, and she caught a glimpse in the distance of two dots, one white and one dark. She breathed a sigh of relief that Celestia and Luna would be present soon. She needed a little more expertise than she could offer. It was all she could do to keep things together. Celestia had to know some better way that they could deal with humans, or have some kind of spell that could help. The flight from Canterlot took only minutes, but a lot of things could happen in a few minutes.

Lyra walked up to the woman, sitting on her haunches and looking up at the distant face. What did she know about humans? Not nearly as much as she wished. Dreams had given her inspirations for certain ideas, and dusty old books fed her some other facts, but in the end none of that helped her now what she was faced with humans.

A small voice in the back of her head suggested that considering that minor detail would have been a good idea before signing Discord’s contract, but she was quick to silence that voice. It sounded too much like Bonbon. Her lack of knowledge was exactly why she’d done it, though; so that she could learn more about them. It just so happened that this was easier said than done.

She could see that humans were smart, that they cared a lot about each other, and that most importantly of all; they were willing to cooperate, at least to some degree. She still couldn’t forget the feeling of having a human in her head. The way it had dominated her thought was unnerving, yes, but she could’ve sworn she could feel its mind at the edges of her own. Maybe if it were to happen again, she could glean some information from it. She wished she could talk to them directly. It would make things so much easier.

Maybe she could get them to take control of her again. If she could get another look into their minds, she knew she would have a much better idea of how to communicate.

There was a soft knock at the door, and all heads turned to face it. The door didn’t open, and after several seconds another gentle knock could be heard. Twilight looked back at the humans, not sure what they would want to do. The woman was looking back at the man, speaking in hushed tones. She could see both slowly reaching towards their weapons again.

Twilight tried to signal for them to keep their weapons stowed, then spoke as she continued to gesture.

“Don’t do that anymore, please! We don’t need you threatening anyone else! I’ll see who it is.”

She took a few steps towards the door, before quickly glancing out the window. She could still see Luna and Celestia approaching, so whoever it was, it wasn’t them.

She reached out with her magic, taking hold of the door handle and opening it just a crack, peeking though.

The familiar faces of her five friends stared at her intently, their concern easy to see. Rainbow Dash was the closest to the door, and quickly stepped closer to the door, saying, “How is it going in there? Are you alright? Need anypony to take them down?”

Twilight hesitated, glancing back at the humans as her ears folded close to her head. Rainbow’s voice was aggressive, and she hoped that they didn’t pick up on it. The last thing she needed was for anything to make them feel threatened. She could tell that they were staring at her horn, but she figured that it might be a good idea to show them how commonly they used magic, so that they weren’t surprised if they saw other ponies using it.

She responded with a forced smile, speaking through clenched teeth. “Everything’s fine! We’ve had a few close calls, but no disasters yet. How about I come out there and talk with you?”

She pulled the door just open enough for her to move through, turning to face the humans and saying, “Sorry, I’ll be right back.” Then she backed out of the room, keeping eye contact the whole way.

Once she was out, she carefully shut the door, and rounded on her friends.

“Please tell me Celestia send some kind of response before she left! I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

They looked at each other briefly before Rarity produced a plain looking scroll, saying, “Well, we told her of the situation, but I’m afraid this is all we got back, darling.”

Twilight hurriedly snatched it out of the air and unfurled it, reading the distinctively flowing and smooth lettering out loud. “Dear friends, please take the utmost precaution and remain safe, I and my sister are coming.”

Twilight stared blankly at the scroll before turning it over and squinting for anything she might’ve missed. “What? That’s it? That’s all she said?” It didn’t make sense, she’d never received a letter like this from the Princess before. It wasn’t even formatted like a letter, instead just consisting of a single line.

Her head started to spin, and her chest started to heave. The others watched her growing distress with worried expressions. It took a few moments, but Applejack stepped forward and placed a hoof over Twilight’s shoulder.

“Come on, Twi! It’s not that bad, we can help if you want. Just tell us what you need to do!”

Twilight looked back at Applejack as a few beads of sweat started to form on her forehead, then started to slow her breathing down. She tried to remember some of the breathing techniques she’d read about from various stress-management books she’d read. In through the mouth, out the nose. In through the mouth, out the nose.

Her heart slowed down, and her thoughts followed suit. Her hooves still shook, but she was able to get her head a little more around the situation than before.

Having more individuals in the room would likely make the humans more nervous, so it probably wasn’t a good idea. They would also have to get familiar with whoever came in, and Twilight wasn’t sure that now was the best time to do that.

Twilight blinked, realizing that she’d been zoned out for a few seconds. She shook her head and said, “I’m sorry, I know you want to help, but I don’t think that would be a good idea right now. I just need to get things stable first; make sure they don’t try to hurt anyone, alright? As soon as I think they’re good, I’ll call you girls. I promise.”

They didn’t seem particularly pleased with this answer, but slowly, one by one, they nodded.

“If you say so.”

“Be careful!”

“Holler if you need us.”

“Maybe they can read?”

“I bet they’d like a party!”

With their blessings, Twilight turned back to the door and opened it slowly, this time opting to push the door with a hoof so she didn’t potentially scare them. As she slowly made her way back inside, she could hear Lyra’s voice.

“-and she never believed me either, but now she has to! I mean, you aren’t really what I expected, but that just means that there’s more to learn!”

Lyra was seated a few inches away from the man’s leg, looking up at him as he worked with one of the unconscious humans, having produced another tool from somewhere. This one had a similar shape to the others, but lacked any kind of glowing lights. Most of the base was red, and it had a small white cylinder on the top. Lyra guessed it was some kind of medical device.

To her delight, the human looked down at her for a second before starting to speak as its eyes went back to its work. She couldn’t tell what it was saying, but there was undeniably a message in there somewhere. His voice sounded happy, maybe even amused, which made her want to talk more.

She opened her mouth, but before she could start speaking, she heard the door latch shut quietly. Turning her head, she found that Twilight had come back in, and was alone. She stood up and rushed to Twilight’s side, asking, “Who was it? What’s going on?”

Twilight sighed.

“It was nothing. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are on their way, they should be here in a few minutes. We just need to make sure that they stay calm until then, alright? It looked like you were doing a pretty good job of that already.”

Lyra gave a large smile and nodded, Twilight could see she was barely containing herself.

“They’re so weird, aren’t they? I mean, weird in a good way, of course! But they’re just so different, with two legs and hands and all. You’ve got to wonder what it’s like, right?”

“Yeah, hard to imagine…”

Twilight’s voice trailed off, and both ponies fell into silence as they watched the human. Twilight realized that the woman wasn’t helping, and cast around the room, gasping when she found her seated on a chair, her head slumped over and chest slowly rising and falling.

“Yeah, she seems to be a pretty light sleeper. I don’t actually know if she’s asleep at all, so you might want to keep an eye on her.”

Twilight tried to keep the confusion off her face. Lyra certainly seemed comfortable around these humans. Much more comfortable than Twilight had been around humans the first time, and even more with these ones specifically. She did seem to have a knack for working with them, and she was obviously excited to do it, but there was still something strange about it.

A sharp, high pitched sound started to come from the man, and both ponies jumped in surprise. Twilight felt her head turn incrementally towards the door as she examined the option of escape, before she realized she recognized the sound. It was only whistling. She started to berate herself for being so jumpy, then stopped, reversing mental directions. She was right to be so jumpy, and it was good that she was prepared for anything.

Lyra was, predictably, much less ready. She stared at the man as a slow tune started to emerge, and Twilight thought she could see a mesmerized glint in her eyes. She looked between the two of them briefly, confirming that the man was paying virtually no attention to them, and that he wasn’t trying some abstract method of communicating.

“Lyra, you know he’s just whistling, right?”

Lyra didn’t look over. Her head didn’t turn in the slightest as she said, “Yeah, but I think I…”

Her voice trailed off as the woman joined in the whistling, looking up and drowsily smiling at the man like he’d told a joke.

Lyra’s head turned from one human to the other, and Twilight got the impression that it was going to pop off her shoulders if she kept it up. Twilight started to reach out to her, intending to ask Lyra what was the matter, but Lyra pursed her lips and started to whistle with them. It took half a second for her to synchronize with them, but as she did, the tune became much more recognizable. She couldn’t place it exactly, but she was sure that she’d heard it before.

It took her a moment to process what that meant. How could humans be familiar with pony music?

Both of the humans seemed to have similar thoughts on the matter, because they looked at Lyra with expressions of confusion and suspicion. Their whistling came to a slow stop, leaving only the unicorn to continue on for a few more beats before realizing she was alone. She tapered off, looking to the ground and saying under her breath, “It was about to get to the duet…”

The humans started to talk with each other again, and Twilight took the opportunity to ask what she was wondering the most.

“Lyra, what was that? II was Equestrian music, right?”

Lyra turned back to her and nodded, saying, “Yeah, an old ballad song. They actually started, like, halfway through, which is kind of weird, but-“

Twilight cut her off, trying not to get distracted by her banter.

“But it was the same, right? As in ‘beyond the realm of coincidence’ same?”

Lyra shifted her weight from side to side as she spoke. “I guess so. I know music is my job and all, but I don’t really know a lot about the history. It’s kind of boring.”

Twilight turned away, looking out the window again and thinking as hard as she could. What reason could there be that they shared something like that? It hadn’t been playing in Ponyville, and if they had just arrived in Equestria, there was no other way they might’ve heard it.

Celestia and Luna were so close now, she could almost see their cutie marks as they streaking through the dark sky, headed to the town center. It wouldn’t take long after that for somepony to tell them where Twilight had taken the humans. Then she would have some legitimate help in the matter. Not that Lyra wasn’t helpful, she was just…

She shook her head, refocusing. There had to be a solution to this. There had to be a way to communicate, it just wasn’t obvious. It needed a little research. And to do that research, Twilight needed some of the immediate pressure off.

The humans continued to speak behind her, and she knew that Lyra would be watching intently. Twilight let her attention return to the sky, and she searched for a moment before realizing that Celestia and Luna were gone. A deep breath exited her chest, and she felt her confidence increase slightly.

Another soft knock at the door made all heads turn again, and Twilight kept herself as restrained as possible as she trotted towards the door. She could feel the eyes of the humans and Lyra on her, but she didn’t let it slow her.

As the wooden door swung open, a soft glow started to pour into the room, giving a warm, comforting feeling. Twilight opened her mouth to greet the Princesses, but took a step back as they moved into the room.

Their faces were stoic and unreadable, and they gazed around at the room, taking note of Lyra and giving Twilight a brief nod before turning their attention to the two conscious humans.

With more reticence than Twilight could remember ever seeing from her mentor, Celestia stepped forwards and used a wing to move Twilight and Lyra behind her while Luna walked past, her eyes fixed on the somewhat alien creatures.

Twilight could already see through Celestia’s feathers that the humans’ hands were sliding slowly towards the weapons at their sides.