The darkness of space was shattered by a blast of light as a hole opened in the very fabric of the universe itself. Out of the hole emerged a starship, tumbling through the inky blackness until with a glow of its engines it managed to stabilize itself. Inside the ship, its captain pulled himself back into his feet, readjusted the headset he wore, that gave him a visual of the ship’s systems and location, and took a moment to recover from what had been a very bumpy ride.
“Status report!”
“All systems are online and working as required,” a crew member replied.
“Where are we?”
“Unknown. None of the star locations match any of our star charts. And the wormhole we passed through appears to be no longer active.” The crewman looked at the sensors for a few more seconds before continuing. “However there is a nearby planet capable of supporting life. It… appears to be circled by a moon and a small star. And our sensors have picked up one more thing…”
The captain stepped forward, looking at the readings visible on his headset before gasping in shock. He quickly recovered and smiled. “Perhaps the gods themselves have sent us here for a reason.”
It was a typical day in Ponyville. The birds were singing. The sun was shining. And Daisy, Lily and Rose were panicking. Princess Twilight Sparkle sighed to herself as she slowly walked towards the front door, bracing herself to deal with whatever ridiculous non-disaster the trio were going on about this time. With a glow of magic the door opened, spilling the three ponies onto the floor in front of her. “What is it this time?”
“It’s enormous!” Daisy cried out.
“It’s gigantic!” Lily wailed.
“It’s blocking out all the sun!” Rose shouted as she grabbed Twilight’s shoulders, shaking the alicorn wildly. “Without the sun all our flowers will die! Die I tell you!”
“The horror! The horror!” Daisy moaned.
“Oh the Equinity!” Lily gasped, lying on the floor with one hoof over her forehead.
“Okay, okay.” Twilight replied, once the world had stopped spinning and she’s extracted herself from Rose’s grip. “I’ll go check it out. I’m sure it’s nothing.” She exited her castle, followed by her ever faithful assistant Spike. “Let’s go see what silly thing it is this time,” she muttered, loud enough so that only Spike could hear.
“Knowing them it’s probably just some weird shaped cloud,” Spike replied, rolling his eyes.
Twilight opened her mouth to respond, but whatever she was going to say was lost as she fell silent, her gaze falling on the massive starship hovering in the skies above Ponyville. It was shaped like a scarab, a rectangular engine attached to each side. “I don’t think that’s a cloud,” she said, finally regaining a tiny bit of composure. “Spike, take a letter to Princess Celestia.”
“Already on it,” Spike replied, voice only wavering a bit in fear as he started writing on the scroll he’d pulled out.
By now a small crowd had gathered. Those ponies that weren’t hiding in panic gazed up at the vessel, watching it float over the city before starting to land in field just outside of town.
“What in tarnation is that thing?” Applejack asked as she walked up to Twilight, joined by Rarity and Pinkie Pie.
“Ooo! Ooo! It’s an interplanetary starship! What do I win?” The other three ponies just stared as Pinkie for a second. “Aww… I never win anything,” Pinkie moaned.
The ship settled down on the ground, a hatch opening. Out stepped half a dozen beings. They were bipeds, each nearly as tall as Celestia herself, the one leading looking very similar to the humans Twilight had meet during her travels to an alternate reality. The only exception was his ears, which ran from his neck to near to top of his head. It kind of reminded Twilight of those headphones the human version of Vinyl Scratch wore. The five beings behind him however look far more alien. Their bluish-grey skin scaly with bone spikes erupting from their chins, as well as the sides and top of their heads. They carried some kind of weapon but held them idly, not threateningly.
Twilight stood as the six approached, once they were close enough she spoke. “Greetings. I am Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, and I welcome you to our wonderful town of Ponyville.” Upon finishing she gave them a wide, friendly smile.
“Fascinating. A talking horse,” the more human of the visitors replied. “I am Weyoun, representative of the great and mighty Dominion. We’ve travelled far, having been flung through a wormhole.”
“Wormhole? What’s worms got to do with anything?” Applejack asked.
“A wormhole,” Twilight explained, her eyes having that glint they always had while she was departing knowledge, “is a theoretical hole in time and space, allowing nearly instantaneous travel from one place to another.”
“Ya mean like that mirror portal thing, you have?”
“Kind of, although it’s only been a theory.” Twilight trotted up to Weyoun. “There must be so much you could tell us about space travel. Other planets, other species.”
“That’s quite impressive, Twilight,” Rarity said, interrupting. “But perhaps we could focus on properly greeting our guests and talk about science later.”
“Of course. We should head to Canterlot so I can properly introduce you to Princesses Celestia and Luna,” Twilight told Weyoun.
The group was interrupted by a ‘psst’ sound, followed shortly by a second, louder one. Looking over, Twilight noticed Rainbow Dash frantically trying to get her attention from the castle entrance. Realizing that everyone was looking at her, Dash gave a goofy smile and wave.
“That’s my friend, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight explained, giving a weak chuckle. “She must want something, even though I’m busy.” The last part was said in a hiss directed towards Dash herself.
“Don’t worry, Twilight,” Pinkie announced as she stepped forward. “You go see what Dash wants and I’ll take care of our guests.”
“Indeed,” Weyoun said. “Don’t let me prevent you from dealing with your subjects.”
“Well she’s not really my subject…” Twilight was cut off as Pinkie starting pushing her towards the castle, Applejack and Rarity followed. Once the three were gone Pinkie bounced up to Weyoun.
“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie. Although you can just call me Pinkie.” She stood on her hind legs, grabbing Weyoun’s right hand with her front hooves and shaking it in greeting. The movement was so energetic that his arm still shook even after Pinkie had released it. The pink pony zipped between the six aliens, peppering them with question after question, not even giving them a chance to respond.
“I hope this is important, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said as Dash led her friends into the castle’s map room, a large room containing a table holding a map of Equestria, surrounded by seven chairs.
“Of course it’s important,” Dash replied, motioning towards a small, fluffy cloud sitting in a corner of the room.
“It’s a cloud…” Rarity stated, confused as she looked between the cloud and Dash.
Dash just sighed. She walked over to the cloud and gave it a wack with one of her hooves. It poofed out of existence, revealing a shivering, yellow pegasus.
“Fluttershy?” Rarity gasped, “Whatever is the matter?”
Fluttershy remained silent while Rainbow just shrugged. “No clue. She can crashing into my home about an hour ago and hid under my bed, muttering something about somepony finding her. I couldn’t get her to tell me anything so I figured I’d bring her here. See if you could help.”
Twilight nodded. “What’s wrong, Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy sniffed, taking a deep breath and looked up at her friend. It was obvious she’d been crying. “They call themselves the Dominion and they’ve come looking for me.”
“Wait? You saying those strange folks that just showed up are here lookin’ for you?” Applejack asked. Fluttershy just nodded in reply.
“Why are they after you? How do you even know who they are?” Dash all but demanded.
“Rainbow Dash! Fluttershy is quite upset enough already,” Rarity scolded Dash. “Now then dear, just take a moment and tell us all about it.”
Fluttershy nodded, closing her eyes and gathering her courage. “I’m not really a pony,” she admitted. “I’m… well we call ourselves Founders but other races call us changelings.”
“You mean like those things that attacked Canterlot back when Twi’s brother got married?”
“Not exactly. It will be easier to show you.” Fluttershy stood, her form changing from that of a pegasus to a kind of goo. Her friends gasped, Rarity taking a few steps back. Fluttershy morphed and changed for a bit before returning to her pegasus form.
“That… is so cool! Can you become anything?”
“It is quite amazing. You… don’t leave bits of yourself all over the place though, do you?”
“Pretty much, and no, all of me stays together,” Fluttershy replied, answering Dash and Rarity’s questions, Rarity giving a sigh of relief in response. Fluttershy then told her story.
“When I was a newborn I was sent away from my people to explore and return with information. I ended up on a planet without any sapient life.”
“Sapient?” Applejack interrupted.
“It means having the ability to reason. It’s often confused with sentience but…” Twilight trailed off as she noticed her friends staring at her. “But we can talk about this later. Please continue Fluttershy.”
“I spent a long time there but I always had this urge to find my people, my home. And eventually I did… but I didn’t like what I found. They were warlike, believing that all solids… um that is anypony that wasn’t a changeling like them couldn’t be trusted and needed to be enslaved or eliminated to keep our species safe. So I ran away, as far as I could. Until I ended up here. I landed near the pegasus flight camp where I meet Rainbow at and well you know the rest.”
The others stood there in shock, Twilight the first to speak. “Why didn’t you tell any of us the truth?”
“First I was too scared, and then I couldn’t find a good time… and then those other changelings attacked Canterlot and well… I was afraid of what you’d think if you knew the truth.”
“Oh sugercube, we don’t care what you are. All that matters is who you are. You’re our friend.” The others all nodded in agreement.
“Yeah! Let’s go tell these Dominion guys to go back where they came from, cause Fluttershy’s staying here.” Dash started to rush off, before being frozen in her tracks by Twilight’s telekinesis abilities.
“We are going to deal with this politely and diplomatically,” she told the others. “For now you should stay here though, Fluttershy.” Fluttershy nodded in agreement as the rest of the group headed back outside.
Outside Weyoun had just about had it will Pinkie’s random ramblings, one hand holding his forehead as he felt a massive headache coming on. “Would you please just shut up!” he growled.
Pinkie paused, frowning at him. “Now is that the kind of attitude to take towards Ponyville’s proficient, professional party planner. Come on and give me a big smile.”
Weyoun was about to order his men to fire when Twilight and the others returned. “We know why you’re here,” she told him. “And while we will allow you to stay for now, provided you follow our laws, Fluttershy doesn’t want to return with you.”
“You know the Founder? Where is she? If we could just speak with her, I’m sure the Founder would choose to come with us.”
“Her name is Fluttershy,” Dash snarled, getting right up in Weyoun’s face.
“Yeah and she ain’t going nowhere with the likes of you. She told us all about what you’d done.”
“You would dare keep the Founder from us?” Weyoun’s voice rose as he glared at the ponies. “If you do not bring her to us my Jem’Hadar soldiers will level this pathetic town.”
“How dare you threaten us, you big meanie!” Pinkie Pie shouted at him.
Weyoun turned to his men. “Make an example of the pink one.” The Jem’Hadar quickly upholstered their weapons and fired. Beams of energy blasted forth towards Pinkie, some digging into the ground around her, causing a huge plume of dust to fill the air where Pinkie stood. After a few seconds of firing the Jem’Hadar stopped and the dust cleared.
“That’s… that’s not possible,” Weyoun gasped as he saw Pinkie Pie standing in the middle of the torn up ground, completely unharmed.
“I guess you don’t know me very well,” Pinkie replied. “And now say hello to my little friend!” She pulled party cannon out of seemingly nowhere and fired. A large pie rocketed forward hitting Weyoun square in the face and knocking him off his feet. He sputtered, muttering something into the radio on his headset while he struggled back to his feet.
Behind him, their ship slowly rose into the air, turning to face the nearby town hall and fired. A pair of photon torpedoes shot forward, glowing as they flew towards the building. Suddenly that stopped, pausing for a second in mid-air before zipping straight up and exploding harmlessly high above Ponyville.
“You will cease hostilities and leave this planet now!” Princess Celestia announced, arriving on the scene. The alicorn grabbed the ship in her telekinesis, the sound of creaking metal audible to everyone as she squeezed it slightly.
“We will not leave until the founder is returned to us,” Weyoun replied as the two forces faced off. Jem’Hadar aimed their weapons, alicorn and unicorn horns glowed as they prepared to cast spells, muscles tensed for the coming battle. And Weyoun, realizing he was now on the front lines of the coming battle took a few steps backwards.
“Stop!” Everyone turned towards the voice. “Please, stop this.” Fluttershy ran out of Twilight’s castle and in between the two forces, retaking her natural form in the process.
“Founder,” Weyoun said, kneeling in front of Fluttershy, the Jem’Hadar lowering their weapons. “You honor us with your presence. What is your command?”
“I… I want you to leave,” Fluttershy told him, having once again taking pegasus form.
“Of course, if you want we can return to the ship and leave immediately.”
“No. I’m… I’m not coming with you.”
“What?”
“I said I’m not coming with you. I’m staying here… with my friends.”
“But Founder? Surely you don’t mean to stay with these solids? They have obviously muddled your thoughts. Once we get you back…”
“No!” Fluttershy shouted, her voice far more forceful than usual. “Are you not pledged to obey me?”
“Of course.”
“Then you will leave. Now. And never come back.” Weyoun stood silent for a long moment then finally nodded. He ordered his men back into the ship.
Fluttershy watched them leave. Once the ship started to take off she finally collapsed, shaking in fear. Her friends quickly surrounded her, telling her how amazing she was and hugging her. She even got a hug from Rainbow Dash.
“That was very brave of you, Fluttershy,” Celestia said as she joined the group. “You risked much to protect your friends today.”
Fluttershy nodded. “And that’s why I’ll have to leave.” The others gasped, but Fluttershy raised her front hooves, quieting them down before continuing. “Now that the Dominion know I’m here they’ll be back. It’s only a matter of time. It’s not safe for me to stay here.”
“Oh I wouldn’t worry about that.” There was a snap of fingers and the starship vanished in a flash of light. The ponies turned to find Discord standing there, holding a bucket of popcorn.
“Discord! What did you do?”
“Oh, Twilight. Always ready to think the worst of me. I merely helped send them home,” Discord explained. “Well and made sure none of them remembered being here. After all I wouldn’t let anyone harm my dear, dear Fluttershy.”
Twilight looked at Discord, unsure, but let the matter drop.
“So you can change into anything?” Pinkie asked Fluttershy as the others brought her up to speed. “That’s so cool. Do me… no wait, do Princess Celestia! No… do William Shatner!”
“Who?” Fluttershy asked, confused as she headed off with her friends.
