Operation Northwest Passage

The Canterlot Express, carrying only eight passengers, steamed its way towards the capital of Equestria. Aboard, five ponies, one dragon, and one human silently refused to talk to one another, born of some innate universal cultural fear of talking in public transit. However, the sixth pony, who happened to be a lavender unicorn, was slowly building up the courage to continue her tirade of questions. After about thirty minutes of silent preparation, which involved primarily staring out the window and rehearsing questions, she turned and opened her mouth to speak.

"So, Mister Carmichaels--"

She shut her mouth again.

"...Where'd he go?"

Applejack stuck her head up over the back of her seat and glanced at Twilight. Jerking a hoof towards the engine, she said,

"Said he was looking for the head. Be back in a few."

"Of course! Right when I was about to start interviewing." She sighed mightily and started to turn back towards the window--

When a discarded charcoal-grey greatcoat, laid out on the human's seat, caught her eye. Its pockets bulged with the myriad equipment and technology the team at Deep Six thought would be necessary for a stay in Equestria.

All at once, several conflicting thoughts rushed into her head. Okay, play it cool Twilight. A creature from another universe, infinitely more technologically advanced than our own, just left a treasure trove of artifacts unguarded right in front of you. It's like he wanted you to root through those pockets and take a look. Do it.

Wait! Advanced or not, you're still going through somebody else's stuff. That's generally regarded as a jerk move. Who knows what he'll say? Don't do it!

Come on, it's reasonable. Any science-minded individual would do the same thing. He would understand. Besides, you could learn so much! And if you put everything back, nopony's the wiser! Do it!

Listening to her own advice, she walked across the aisle. Six heads turned in unison to watch her approach the coat and begin lifting things out with her magic. Papers, lengths of rope, changes of clothing, bits of food, wrapped gemstones...everything was carefully observed from every angle before being replaced.

Near the end of her search, Twilight found something interesting hanging from some sort of scabbard near the armpit of the coat. Pulling it out with some difficulty, she carefully spun it around. It seemed to be an "L"-shaped mass of black-and-silver tubes, levers and tiny rotating gears. In the crook of the "L" lay a loop of metal, which was nearly intersected by a thick lever.

Rotating the strange contraption to the curious gazes of her friends, she looked closely at the lever. It looked like the lever was some way to activate the thing, based on what she could see of its inner workings. Out of sheer curiosity, she slowly pulled the lever back with her magic, watching one portion rotate as she did so. Interested by this strange device, she pulled the small metal switch harder.

A thunderous roar of fire and noise erupted from the object, blowing out several windows from the sheer force of the blast. At the same time, a hum like that of a gigantic wasp tore through the air, accompanied by a hoof-sized hole being blown through everything in front of the device.

The seven friends stood there in shock for a few seconds, their eardrums nearly blown out by the shock. Then, recovering quickly, Rainbow Dash called out,

"Is everypony all right?"

Nearly everyone there responded with some overly loud version of "dazed, confused, but fine." Thinking of her easily frightened friend, Rainbow called over her seat to Fluttershy in hopes of cheering her up after such a fright.

"You alright over there, Fluttershy?"

Almost inaudibly, the response came after several second's pause: "I- I'm alright. Don't worry. I'm just-"

Her voice was drowned out by the gentle sound of droplets falling and impacting with the floor of the train car. Far too late, everypony there saw the growing pool of blood on the floor. Far too late, they heard the yellow pegasus collapse.

"Fluttershy!"

***

Fact: At the sign of danger, most members of the Carmichaels family can reach foot speeds of over forty miles an hour.

***

Carmichaels burst through the door to the passenger car like the proverbial unstoppable force, tearing through it like so much rice paper. Casting his gaze about, he reached a simple conclusion:

"You shot somepony."

Twilight Sparkle nodded bleakly as the human pushed his way past to the unlucky Fluttershy. After a few second's examination, he allowed a quick sigh of relief.

"Well. You didn't actually shoot her, thank heavens."

"Wha- but, the blood! The sound!"

Gim flicked his gaze up to a light fixture that had been blasted out by the enormous blast. "Looks like the shockwave knocked that out and she got hit with the glass. Lucky nopony else was hit."

He laid a pair of fingers on the unconscious pegasus' throat. "But she still might not make it. Looks like the shock from firing that in such close proximity to her inadvertently caused a severe case of cardiac fibrillation."

"What does that mean?"

"Means her heart's going too fast to properly pump blood. If it doesn't get fixed soon, Fluttershy's brain will essentially suffocate.

"Now," Carmichaels said, rasing his gaze to the congregation, "does anypony have a defibrillator on them?"

Six blank stares met his disappointed eyes.

"Right. Well. Hopefully what I'm about to do won't kill her." He suddenly lashed out, kicking one of the car's seats off its mounts. Shoving it away to make a larger working space, he quickly turned to Twilight, who was simply staring in shock.

"Twilight. Where, exactly, is the heart on a pegasus?"

Startled, the lavender unicorn shook herself before responding. "I don't see what-"

Gim slammed his fist down on the car's floor, causing everypony to jump. "Twilight, if you don't answer in the next thirty seconds, one of your best friends is going to die. Where. Is the heart. On a pegasus."

She swallowed nervously, then poked at Fluttershy's side. "Here."

"Outstanding. Now stand back, everypony. Even if this doesn't kill her, it's going to be quite the shock."

As he spoke, sparks of electricity began to coalesce around his hands. The air became filled with a low whine as the arcing plasma became ever brighter and stronger. Bolts of lightning coursed up his arms and into the air, grounding themselves on various bits of metal. As he lowered his hands towards the pegasus, he called out one final word:

"Clear!"

And he slammed his palms down directly above where Fluttershy's heart lay.

The yellow pegasus' body bucked wildly as every light in the train blew out. A thin scent of smoke and ozone permeated the car. Carmichaels cocked his head slightly, as if hearing some sound outside the ponies' range of hearing.

"No pulse. Perfection."

Rarity suddenly became livid. "PERFECTION? You just killed her! Why, I-"

"Hush." The single word was spoken with enough quiet force that the alabaster unicorn immediately shut up and watched.

"Now, once more. This one's the hard part." Once again, the air filled with the sound of building power. A thin fog of charged plasma surrounded the two as Gim once again called out.

"Clear!"

The energy released was enough to cause every one of Fluttershy's muscles to contract for no less than ten seconds. Once this subsided, the human's fingers again rested on her throat. A few seconds of silent observation soon caused him to wipe sweat off his brow in relief.

"Alive. Pulse is stronger than ever."

The resulting cheer rivaled any that an ecstatic stadium full of Wonderbolts fans could create. Carmichaels weathered this for a while, before stopping it with a simple,

"Thank you, thank you. You're too kind. But our job isn't over. Twilight, if you don't mind, there's a roll of bandages in one of my coat pockets. Let's get to work!"

The remainder of the trip consisted of the seven working together to stitch and patch Fluttershy's wounds, and eventually explaining exactly what happened to her when the pegasus finally woke up. Although it only seemed like minutes, several hours passed until the Express came to a stop at the Canterlot station. Upon disembarking, the eight friends took a moment to take in all the sights of the capital city.

"Wow," Fluttershy murmured, "Beautiful."

Gim, standing next to her, was of a similar opinion. "I know...Seems a lot bigger from when I was last here."

Twilight responded in turn. "True...Funny how time can-" She made an odd choking noise as the human's words hit her full-force. "Wait. When you were last here? What?!"

But the lieutenant was already striding off towards the palace, a wide grin plastered on his face as he heard Twilight spluttering to figure out what he meant.

***

Sitting in a corner cafe just across from the train station, a certain greenish unicorn suddenly noticed what was going on outside and turned to look. Exactly one point two five seconds later, the signals from her eyes reached her brain. Point eight four seconds after that, the images became associated with animate objects.

Two point three six seconds later, Lyra collapsed face-first into her bowl of oatmeal.

***

Along a straight line to the palace, the streets were lined with shocked or fainted ponies, having reacted poorly to the strange human now walking their streets. With him came five ponies, one dragon, and one bookworm that was now asking every question she could come up with. Having suddenly realized that he was being subjected to this bombardment, Carmichaels held up his hands to stop her.

"Look, I'm afraid I can't answer any of your questions right now. Unfortunately, these sorts of things can presently only be discussed with the Princesses. You're just going to have to wait until they or I approve full disclosure. For now, the only things you can learn from are already here."

Twilight's face fell as she puzzled over this. "What do you mean?"

Infuriatingly, Gim responded only with, "All in due time."

"AAAGH!"

***

Moondancer was a simple pony. Throughout her service to the Princesses, she had but one job: gatekeeper to the royal palace. Nopony could get through the massive iron gates to the palace without royal decrees signed in triplicate and a security pass registered with the Royal Guards. Not a single creature, pony, or hideous monster got past her without permission. So for her, it was just another day when eight figures strode up to the gates with no intention of stopping at the gatehouse. Realizing the implications, she ran out in front of the lead one, some sort of tall greyish monkey.

"Hey. Hey! Stop! In the name of the--"

She was interrupted by the sensation of being gently scooted out of the way. The grey thing turned back and smiled like a wolf would smile to a sheep. Moondancer couldn't help but feel a sizable measure of abject horror when the thing spoke.

"It's okay, I've got an appointment."

He pushed open the gates, allowing the group to pass through.

As they slowly disappeared into the distance, Moondancer sat limply in the dust. Maybe, she thought, just maybe, a near-perfect track record is good enough.

***

The group advanced through the palace at a rapid clip, with the ponies and dragon running to keep up with the human's long strides. Twilight came up alongside the lieutenant and panted out, "How...How do you know you way around the castle?"

Gim affixed her with a gaze that said, How many times do I have to say "I can't tell you jack"?

Twilight looked away. "Right."

They soon came to the massive doors that marked the entrance to the throne room. Finally, Carmichaels came to a stop, quickly tidying himself up for a meeting with royalty. Taking the hint, the rest also hurriedly hoof-combed their manes so as to avoid looking like a bunch of tramps, or worse, marathon runners. Sufficiently preened, the lone human turned to address everypony there. When he spoke, it was in a voice that anypony that spent enough time around government officials would recognize, regardless of universe.

"In the interest of universal security, I'm going to have to ask you to remain in the back of the hall until my conversation with the Princesses is complete. I apologize for any inconvenience."

With this, he strong-armed the gigantic wooden doors open and strode inside.

As Gim made his way towards the twin thrones, Twilight whirled about and addressed her friends in a tone usually reserved for unruly librarygoers: quiet, but somehow also extremely loud.

"Alright, does anypony else think this is weird? Somepony from another universe just shows up, knowing everything about everypony? Then he gets an audience with the two busiest ponies in Equestria in seconds? Then he says he's been here before? Without anypony noticing? I mean, he's a giant human! Somepony should've noticed!"

In the back of the group, Pinkie Pie suddenly piped up. "What do you mean, 'without anypony noticing'? I noticed!"

Twilight made the same choking noise she had made several minutes before.

"Wha...I...huhhh...you...noticed?"

Making perfect sense of this, Pinkie nodded rapidly. "Yep! We had a lot of fun, too! All sorts of adventures. Also cake. We had cake once."

At this point, Twilight was starting to make a sort of habit out of this choking sound.

"And...and you didn't tell anypony?"

Pinkie giggled. "Of course I didn't, silly filly! The whole thing was very very classified. I could only talk to the Princesses about it! And the humans, of course."

Having noticed the plural use of human, Twilight's brain decided to put a stop to motor functions and sensory input in order to spend more power on thinking. As a result, she crumpled to the floor like a sack of potatoes just as a very interesting conversation started on the other side of the hall.

Gim strode up to the base of the massive staircase leading to the twin thrones, dropping down into a low bow. His voice rang out through the quiet chamber: "Princesses. I have grave news from Helios."

Celestia inclined her head gently. "It must be grave for such a public entrance. Tell me, what has happened in your fair universe?"

The human produced a sheaf of papers from one coat pocket, allowing the princess of the sun to float them over to her. "I'm afraid Northwest Passage is being enacted. Upon your approval, homecoming operations will start immediately."

The white alicorn flicked through the various documents and diagrams, her expression growing more and more solemn. "Grave news indeed. There is nothing that can be done to stop this?"

Carmichaels sighed, his shoulders slumping visibly. "I'm afraid not. We've postponed this as long as we can, but Helios command is adamant: We have to bring them home. We'll begin mobilization as soon as you give us the go-ahead."

"I wish it were so easy. My sister and I shall need time to pass judgement. After all," she continued with the hint of a smile across her worried face, "this is our universe."

Lieutenant Carmichaels chuckled. "Of course. I'll try to stay out of trouble while I wait." He reached into yet another pocket and produced a black rectangular box that he underhanded towards the princesses. "If you need me, just press the green button and speak. I'll get the message."

With another bow, Gim turned and purposefully strode off. Upon coming closer to the doors, his stride was broken by a sudden crackling noise. The newly-awakened Twilight and company turned and gazed towards the crackling human. Carmichaels jumped a bit, then lifted another black box from one of his hundreds of pockets. He thumbed a tiny button, and the crackling gave way to a deadpan voice.

"Carmichaels. You there?"

"Yeah, I hear you. What's going on?"

Six ponies and one dragon, boggled at the spectacle of a man talking to a box--that was talking back.

"Bad news from Deep Six. Apparently we've got a fault in our tunneling guidance package. It can handle simple things like people just fine, but it'll choke on bigger things and multiple people. Violently."

"So...what does that mean for the mission?"

"Means we won't be able to get the gear and staff through that are required to complete Northwest Passage. We could rewrite the package software, but it could take months."

"Any other options?"

"Do you remember the files we recovered from Aurora's archives?"

"Yeah. What of them?"

At this, Gim turned away, causing the voice from the box to become inaudible to the group of ponies. Twilight leaned forward visibly, straining her hearing, until Applejack scooted her back with a face that said, Come on, sugarcube. Time to respect some privacy. The unicorn shot Applejack a death glare before acquiescing.

After some hushed dialogue, the human turned back around. His voice rang out confusedly,

"How am I supposed to find that?"

"You're on your own there, buddy. Try talking to the locals, do some research."

"Right then. Carmichaels out." Stowing the box, he walked towards the collected ponies. Twilight spoke up in her now-standard confused tone:

"What...what's going on?"

Upon hearing this, Gim turned and knelt before her. Locking gazes, he spoke in his most even, measured tone. "Twilight. In order to complete my mission, I'm going to have to research as much about humans in Equestria as is physically possible. To do so, I'm going to need your help and your insight. Can you help me?"

"I...yes. Yes, I can. Where do we start?"

A familiar grin spread across Gim's face. He stood and made for the castle's front gates. Twilight galloped alongside as her friends followed, calling out, "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to find the one other pony that will be able to help me. Come on! I'll bet she's close to the castle. Everypony else, you're just going to be bored out of your minds...Best just get back on the train to Ponyville."

Spike shrugged. "I, uh...alright. Come on, let's let the eggheads get to work."

And so the two groups parted ways: One headed back towards the train station, and the other towards the heart of Canterlot.