X-COM: Allies Unknown

“So… What is it,” asked the curious orange mare to the purple unicorn who was observing the… creature with an intense eagerness.

“I don’t know AJ,” replied the unicorn. “But one thing’s for sure. It’s not from around here…” Applejack had gave a small snicker before Twilight had turned to her with a questioning gaze. “What Sugarcube? You wouldn’t expect the good ol’ science mare here to say that there’s an actual alien visiting our planet?”

Twilight had just shrugged off the comment. After all, why get upset at all when there’s an extra-terrestrial right in front of her? The first thing to catch her attention though was the items that were held by the unconscious creature. Two silver contraptions were laying to the side of the creature: One being long with a green substance that seemingly coursed through the object in question, the other being much shorter than the first, but still having glowing green lines and spots amongst the surface. The second thing to interest the scientist was what the creature was wearing. It wore a sort of black hat that leaned to the side and had a symbol-a stretched out pentagon with two lines crossing through the middle that crossed out what seemed to be a sphere, 3 star-like figures lying between the space of each cross-  designed into it. It also wore some sort of darkly tinted glasses, which kept anything from seeing what was presumably its eyes. Moving downwards, the creature sported a seemingly bulky black suit that covered all parts of the body below its head. Two tubes protruded from the back of suit in a way that each tube’s long side was parallel to the back of the suit.

“Would you mind telling me how our guest got here,” asked Twilight, who had taken on an interrogative tone.

“Well partner, ah was just waking up fer’ a day of working on the orchard here until some sort of purple light flashed out by Everfree Forest. When ah went on down to check it, nothin’ was there except some sort of hoof-print. I was about to go back until ah heard somethin’ rustlin’ up in the apple trees. Turns out it was this feller’ right here, who fell out the tree after a moment.”

Twilight was quite perplexed by this. There has to be some reason for this creature’s sudden appearance. It can’t just appear for no reason, right?

“That’s quite unusual AppleJack… shouldn’t we tell the others about this… thing though?”

“Ah’m pretty sure that this would start up quite a buzz in Ponyville, and ah don’t need every pony in town to be crowdin’ around mah family’s farm. It’d be pretty hard to get anything done round’ here if we’re swarmed, yah know?”

Twilight had a small frown on her face, but soon replaced it with a look of understanding.

“Well, should we go ahead an’ move this feller here to the barn?”

“Probably AppleJack. This thing’s probably going to be panicked when it wakes up. It wouldn’t hurt to get it contained…”

———————————————————————————————————————

The two ponies had finally gotten the (quite heavy) alien to the barn. It was tied up and sitting on a bale of hay at the time, still unconscious at the time, and the two ponies had one thought at that point: what now?

“Um, Twi? What in the hay are we supposed to do now,” asked the worn out orange pony, panting little after between every few words.

Of course, Twilight didn’t have an answer at the time. She had been sitting on a small bale of hay before one idea hit her. An idea she wasn’t too sure about.

“Well… We could find out a bit more about it.”

Applejack gave her a questioning look, and asked,”Now what do yah mean by that Twilight?”

“I remember reading about a certain spell that could allow me to enter any creature’s mind. The problem though was that I needed to be up close to the creature in order to… enter it’s mind. I never could find any pony willing to be a subject, but now…” Twilight had turned over to the armored E.T.

“Hold on there Twily! Ah’m sure it’d be rude to start pokin’ around in some random thing’s mind,” said the country-raised equine.

“Well… This could possibly be my only chance to see if that spell was just a lie or the real deal. I don’t want to waste this opportunity.”

Applejack wanted to stop her, but a certain curiosity took over, and won her out. She still had a nervous feeling as she watched her purple friend walk over to the alien. She watched as the unicorn had stared at the thing, and began lowering her horn to its head.

“Here goes nothing,” Twilight said as her horn began glowing.

———————————————————————————————————————

Black. That’s all he saw. An infinite plane of pitch black. Nothing else was on the man’s mind besides his past, distant and recent memories. Above all were those… things he saw. They looked like candy-colored horses! And one had a hat. A fucking hat! Out of everything he’s seen while he was with the XCOM organization… Even that royalty looking fucker. It looked frail as hell - excluding the helmet -  but it had psionic powers beyond anyone’s expectations.

He could still remember the echoing voice it sent him. It sent chills down his mind as he stared straight into its eyes.

SUBMIT!

SUBMIT!

NO HOPE!

SURRENDER!

He could still remember his life flying in front of his eyes: His birth, his Russian family, enlisting as a soldier, and being recruited for XCOM… until Clank had saved him with a Kinetic Strike. He could remember Clank, the tough guy of the group. The first of humans to go under Cybernetic Augmentation; The first to don the MEC suit. The only one who could handle it. Then there were the others-

“FUCK,” The operative yelled in his conscience. He could feel something piercing his skull, almost feeling like a knife with a plasma blade… if there ever was such a thing. Still, he knew something was trying to break into his mind! He knew because of the many times those Sectoids tried to mind-rape him. He was ready since the last time he was a victim of mind-control, ever since he volunteered for the gene labs. Since he had gone under genetic modification. Nothing had ever violated his mind since then! NOTHING WILL NOW!

———————————————————————————————————————

Applejack had seen Twilight begin to struggle not even five seconds after she began her “snooping” around with the creature.

“You ok there Twily,” the farmer pony asked, worry obvious in her voice.

“Yes… Maybe… Ugh,” Twilight had strained out. Something was holding her back from delving into the creatures mind. Wait, not just holding back - pushing her out! Something was being directed back to her, but she didn’t know what it was. This never happened before! Nothing has ever been able to resist magic, unless they had magical abilities themselves, but this thing didn’t even have something to concentrate magic! Hay, it didn’t even show any signals of magic, but somehow it was resisting? The last though that ran through Twilight’s mind was,”How!?” before she stumbled back into a wall of the barn, pain searing through her mind and eyes wide with surprise.

That is, until she saw the creature move. It only twitched a bit at first, but that quickly stopped. The creature had been able to tear apart the rope that binded him, an audible snap being heard before he jumped off the hay bale. Twilight’s iris quickly shrank, fear evident  in them, as her mouth gaped open. The creature shrugged what may its shoulders, and rolled its head with audible pops and cracks before it unholstered the large silvery tube, which began to hum and automatically expand certain parts. The two ponies soon found themselves face to face with a pulsing, green energy as the creature pointed at them, swiveling from one to the other.

It didn’t take long before it spoke in a low, ominous voice.

“Who... The FUCK... Tried that!”