Book 1 - Prisoner and Savior

Chapters

Chapter I - Once Lost, but now Found
Chapter II - Back at Home
Chapter III - Memories
Chapter IV - Stopping the Spell
Chapter V - Inspection
Chapter VI - On the Run
Chapter VIII - Into the unknown
Chapter IX - The Dream
Chapter X - Heading Off
Chapter XI - Growth of Knowledge
Chapter XII - Translator
Chapter XIII - Finding Twilight
Chapter XIV - Actor Xul
Chapter XV - Fight or Flight
Chapter VII - New Friends

Chapter I - Once Lost, but now Found

A purple pony, along with all of the other creatures were quickly moved out of the room. They were heading down the hallway to the cafeteria to get breakfast, then to go to work. The pony didn't particularly enjoy the work, she knew that it wasn't what she had done all her life, but without any memory of before, there was nothing to miss. Luckily, there were always guards telling them what to do, it made it easier, as trying to think on her own was hard for the little pony.

Thinking, remembering, or trying to do anything was too hard. The pony and the other creatures would rather just obey. Well, like working, they didn't really like obeying, and would probably rather do something for themselves, but their minds were fuzzy, like waking up from a dream. Sometimes the pony tried to remember, but it just gave her a headache. Right now, for instance, she is studying the creatures around her as she moved through the brightly lit hallway.

Each day was the same, had it been days? She couldn't remember. The routine was simple; get up, eat, work in the mines, eat, then sleep. The pony thought of it as days, or day because there was probably a time before...this.

She moved into a line full of almost 100 other creatures, where she was going to get breakfast. No choice, of course, but the pony didn't mind, she didn't have the mental strength to make a decision. The guards would serve her like in a school lunchroom. Noticing her memory of simple things, the pony concluded that she does remember some things.

It's just like having amnesia, she thought, I remember basic life things, but nothing specific.

As she moved her hooves to grab a tray, she took notice of what she was wearing. Or course, she might have already seen it, but she had no memories of doing so.

The pony was wearing a gray jumpsuit that covered most of her body, and she also had a metal collar around her neck that was emitting green light. All of the other creatures were wearing similar clothes, differing only to fit their body shape. She was the only one who walked on four feet, while all of the others were bipeds, although there were a few creatures that looked like a blob of slime. Other than the slime one, they looked similar to the creatures she met in Klugetown.

Klugetown? where do I know that from? The pony's mind was too cloudy, and she lost her small train of thought.

She sat down in her usual spot with the group that she operated with inside the mines. Hmmm...I guess that I have some memory left... she thought.

A few minutes later, a ringing tone started, and the creatures moved from the cafeteria to the work fields. As she passed the entrance to the mine, the pony took notice of the two guards posted on either side of the 2-door doorway. These guards looked nothing like the ones from her home. Wait... what did the guards from home even look like? She tried to picture them but soon gave up, as it only gave her a headache.

Soon, they had all begun working. They would work with the groups that they sat with for breakfast, dinner, and slept with, so about 10 creatures per group. Their job was to break up some kind of rock. I bet Maud would know what we are doing. The pony considered before her mind clouded up again, it was like breaking free from something, only to be dragged back into it. Once the rocks were broken up, the creatures would transport them to the other side of the mine. Occasionally, they would find a translucent mineral, which would be handed to whichever guard was overseeing them that day. Since the task was designed for those with hands, the pony was told to use her head to transport the rocks to the other side of the mine.

It makes me tired and often gives me a headache, but that's okay, they always tell me what to do. She thought.

. . .

At one point, the pony slammed into another rock front-first.

"Oof!" she said, with very little emotion in her voice. It wasn't anyone fault, as a miner had simply thrown one in her path, and with her slow reflexes, the pony kept walking straight into the rock.

As she went back to work, a guard came up to inspect her, perhaps to make sure she wasn't hurt. The pony was fine on the outside, but she had begun to feel an annoying prickling pain on her neck.

. . .

Something came over the speakers. It was in a language that the pony did not know, yet she seemed to have a vague idea of what it was saying.

"All have food." it wasn't an exact translation, but close enough for her. She thought that it was like how Fluttershy understands animals, but this being on a more psychological level. Fluttershy? Who's she?

The pony couldn't finish her thought, because the guards had started to move them back to the cafeteria for dinner.

. . .

As she sat there eating her dinner, the prickling feeling that had started earlier began to annoy her even more.

Ugh! If I could just make it stop! She thought, as her mind became hazier.

Near the end of dinner, the pony could barely think at all, and in her delusional state, she accidentally broke something. Although she didn't know it at the time, the actions her horn performed without her knowing would save her life.

Ring! The sound started, indicating that it was time for them all to go back to their bunks. The pony followed the crowd, her mind still foggy, but the pain, for the most part, was gone. Although, as the pony climbed into her bed, she could feel something nagging at the edge of her mind. Not quite sure what it was, she tried to ignore it and get some sleep.

Of course, she just couldn't fall asleep until what was nagging at her stopped, so she remained wide-awake for a while.

What is it?! She thought, and for once, it was rather easy to hold a though, despite the fuzziness of her mind.

Then, as she could no longer stay awake, the pony remembered.

Princess Twilight Sparkle, Ruler of Equestria.

What?! The pony wasn't expecting to remember the name of some random ruler. Then she came to realize, this was not just any ruler, this was her! Twilight Sparkle is her name, she is an alicorn princess, and she rules Equestria...wherever that may be.

Satisfied with her discovery, Twilight allowed herself to fall asleep, maybe she could remember more tomorrow...

Author's Note

I hope that you liked this first chapter. This is my first time doing a real story (not a short-story or report), so I apologize if it isn't of the best quality.

Chapter II - Back at Home

Dear Princess Celestia and Luna,

Sorry for bringing this up when you have recently retired, but I could use your help. Twilight was not here this morning, and when I talked to my friends, they said that they haven't seen her since her last visit to them (a few days ago). She left no note and did not take anything with her, including the amulet. I am sure I hope that she is fine, but if she does not return before dusk, both of you may need to control the Sun and Moon again. I will send an update on her whereabouts once I get the chance, but with Twilight missing, I have to take over her duties. Right now, all I know is that she was here this morning (the Sun's up), but I have not seen her since last night.

With friendship,

The Royal Advisor, Spike.

After sending the letter, Spike began to work on Twilight's tasks, he was glad that she always had a list or a schedule prepared for the next day. He grabbed the notes on her desk in their room, which had once belonged to Celestia and Luna, and began to read through her tasks.

Throughout the day, Spike was trying his best to complete Twilight’s duties, but he had to call on Starlight for the meeting about the School of Magic and was unable to do the things only an alicorn or skilled unicorn could do. He hid it well, but he was very concerned about Twilight. She usually left a note or told him in advance. His first thought was that she was ponynapped, but he tried to dismiss it as an urgent summon, perhaps by the Cutie Map, or maybe some creature in need of help.

Dear Spike,

We are happy to assist in raising the Sun and Moon today, and we hope that you are doing well in Twilight's absence. We know that you have never been the best at politics, but we have no doubt that you will do your best, even without Twilight. Please notify us of any information you receive on her location we are very concerned that she has not been able to send a note. If things become more serious, we will be happy to come back to Canterlot to help. We know that the magic from us and the amulet is still working since the sun has been moving across the sky, but as you know, sunrise and moonrise are the times when pony magic is required.

Best Wishes,

Celestia and Luna.

Spike sat down in one of the chairs in the dining room, normally he shared his time with Twilight, or with one of their friends if time allowed, but now he was all alone in the large room.

. . .

After performing several more duties, Spike sent another letter to the sisters.

Dear Celestia and Luna,

Twilight has not returned yet, so I'd like it if you could please take care of the Sun and Moon for today and probably tomorrow morning. I'll let you know if she returns tomorrow.

Spike knew his letter had reached them because, in a few moments, the Sun began to set, and the Moon to rise. He was relieved that at least one problem had been solved today.

. . .

The next day, Spike woke up and checked around the castle, mainly Twilight's room and the throne room, but there was no sign of her. Beginning to worry, Spike sent letters to his friends, and Celestia and Luna.

Dear Starlight, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Pinkie,

I still have not seen Twilight, and I've started to worry. What if she was ponynapped?! I wanted to let you all know that I've got most things covered here in Canterlot, but I would appreciate it if you informed the citizens of Ponyville about her disappearance. However, please do not cause worry - I did that in Canterlot, and things did not end well! Anyway, I'll be sure to let you know if she returns as soon as possible, but until then, try not to freak out!

See you soon,

Spike.

The letter to the sisters was similar, but he asked them to continue raising the Sun and Moon like they had done last night, and this morning. However, Spike was not expecting them to show up in person, instead of delivering another letter.

"Hello Spike, it's good to see you again, though I wish it were on better circumstances." Celestia and Luna appeared before Spike, both smiling but unable to hide their worry.

"We trust that you have been doing a good job as a leader, but we thought that you might need a little help, and things have become a little dull in Silver Shoals—it's been, what, two Moons since the attack of Crysalis, Tirek, and Cozy?" Luna was correct, it seems like every two months there's another major threat to Equestria, so it's not all surprising that the sisters may be called upon for their magic now and then. Twilight has only begun her rule, but everypony knew that she was still not quite as powerful as Celestia and Luna without her friends (although with her friends she was just as, or even more powerful than them).

"Thank you for coming all this way to help, I'm sorry that you had to come back so soon," Spike said, realizing that Twilight would not like that she inadvertently caused the sisters to have to work again.

"Oh, it's no problem at all!" Celestia said, "we were planning on checking in on how you, Twilights, and your friends are running things here." Spike was glad that they were not upset, but he was still surprised that they had come so readily.

"We’ll be able to help take care of some of Twilight's duties that require magic. You said recently that there was a problem with the volcano in the Dragonlands that Twilight was meant to take care of." Luna said.

Although everything was now under control, the group was worried about Twilight. Where had she gone? When will she be back? Should we start searching? None of them voiced these worries, but each of them had a feeling of dread in their stomachs.

Author's Note

Here’s my second chapter! I hope you liked it, I know the princesses coming back is a little weird, but I though it’d be logical since they’re the only alicorns who are not busy, and would probably be willing to be “part of the action” again.

Chapter III - Memories

Riinnnng!

Twilight Sparkle awoke with a start upon hearing the loud and long bell noise meant to serve as an alarm clock. Today was a good day, better than any she could remember at least. Why? She knew her name, Twilight Sparkle. She liked her name, better than just knowing that she was a pony.

Like all of the other days, the creatures sat up and stood at their beds, ready to go. Most shared a bunk-bed with another creature, including Twilight, who was paired with a blue biped.

Once everyone was up and ready, the creatures began to move into the hallway where they met with other groups. As they did this, Twilight subconsciously took notice of how she felt. Since she had just woken up, Twilight felt tired and drowsy, but her mind was clear enough to perform basic functions. It was like she was waiting for some oh my Celestia! moment when she remembered something urgent to make her "jump out of bed."

Celestia... Twilight realized that it wasn't a normal word in her mental dictionary.

Following the usual routine, Twilight's group arrived at the entrance to the cafeteria. However, this time Twilight paid attention to her surroundings, despite the tiredness and lack of focus. Noting unusual here, besides the other creatures and- what in Equestria is that?! Twilight spotted the slime-blob monster she saw yesterday, only now she could tell how strange it was.

Then, Twilight spotted the two guards, and instinctively flattened her face. She wasn't sure if they were friends or foes, but she thought it would be safer to pretend that she wasn't freaking out. Appearing lifeless wasn't hard when she was already tired. Twilight just had to give in to the feeling of hopelessness, which seemed to trail behind her every thought.

Twilight moved past the guards with no trouble and was able to sit down to eat without giving herself away. With little time on her hooves, Twilight forced herself to remember. Though she was much more alert, she still struggled to comprehend the world around her.

Twilight tried her best to sort out her mind, and figure out what to do.

Okay, I'm in a strange place with few memories. My name is Twilight Sparkle, I'm an alicorn (whatever that means) and I rule Equestria (wherever that is).

It wasn't much to go off of, but Twilight had learned that, with effort, she could remember more. Twilight decided to puzzle out the new memories that had surfaced earlier.

I used "Celestia" before- and that's not a normal word. Maybe a name? But the name of what? A place, and item, a pony?

The last idea caught her attention. Twilight decided that "Celestia" must be the name of a pony, not just any creature in Equestria.

Alright... Celestia's probably the name of a pony, which also tells me that there are other creatures in Equestria.

Next step: who is Celestia?

Twilight repeated the name in her head several times, trying to come up with an image to go along with it, but nothing surfaced. Losing hope, she took a slow bite of her food.

Ew!

The food was disgusting!

Even Pinkie would hate this! It's worse than the "pudding" from Captain Celaeno's ship!

With that, Twilight had two more names to think about. She forced herself to continue eating as she tried to come up with faces for these two as well. Luckily, the name "Pinkie" gave her an idea. She remembered that most ponies' names reflected them in some way, so maybe she could use their names to help.

So Celestia... sounds like celestial, which has to do with the sky. Is Celestia a pony in the sky?

Twilight dismissed that idea, it seemed too weird.

Celestia, celestial... sky... stars... moon... sun- Sun? Sun!

Twilight had it. Celestia wasn't a pony in the sky, she controlled the sky! Or part of it at least. Celestia was in charge of the Sun.

The only problem was, Twilight wasn't sure how she controlled the Sun. However, she dismissed it for now- she wasn't even sure if her ideas were true, or if her memory lied to her. Something seemed off about Celestia and the Sun, and she still didn't know what Celestia looked like.

Taking another terrible bite of her food, Twilight pondered the other names that came up.

Pinkie... Pie. A pony, probably pink. Maybe she bakes pies?

Twilight pictured a pink version of herself in her mind and called it: Pinkie Pie. It wasn't accurate, but it was the best she could do.

Hmm... she'll have a cutie mark too, maybe a pie?

Twilight put an image of a pie on "Pinkie's" flank, replacing her own.

Cutie marks! I remember those!

Six images flashed through Twilight's mind as she remembered what cutie marks were.

Balloons, apples, diamonds, a lightning bolt, butterflies, and a star. Her star. Twilight wasn't sure about the other symbols, but she knew that the star belonged to her.

But what does it mean? All cutie marks mean something, don't they?

Twilight focused on the image of her cutie mark, trying to connect it to her title. She thought that the main star represented her since she was a ruler and that the smaller ones represented her subjects, but something wasn't right.

They all represent something more... I just need to find a connection...

Then, something in her tired mind clicked. If someone was looking at her during this moment, they would see a spark light up in her eyes. She remembered!

The Pillars planted a seed, that seed became the Tree of Harmony, which has my cutie mark, and some other marks as well. The Tree of Harmony has, no, had? Had the Elements of Harmony, one of which was mine. Magic! The magic of friendship!

Most of the information was vague- Twilight didn't know what the Pillars or the Tree of Harmony were, but hey, she had remembered something. Twilight now knew that she had represented the Element of Magic, which is shown by her cutie mark. And, she knew that she had magic.

Magic! Oh, how could I have forgotten something so important?

Disorderly memories flooded over Twilight. Her friends, family, and her life became clearer, but something about the memories wasn't right. Twilight felt like she was looking at somepony else's life, but she was still missing details. Twilight knew that she had 7 best friends, and she knew their names know. However, like Pinkie Pie, she could not recall much else about them, including their faces. Twilight thought that she could remember more if she tried, but her mind was even more tired after that long thinking spell.

Then, the alarm sounded, breaking Twilight's train of thought. It indicated that it was time to work. Twilight shoved the rest of the slop into her mouth and focused on acting lifeless again. Thinking could wait for now.

. . .

Twilight soon realized that thinking simply couldn't wait. Questions pestered her mind as she worked- with the rediscovery of magic, she kept having to force herself not to use the levitation spell that most unicorns knew by instinct.

Twilight tried to remember any other spells she might know, but she had forgotten how to cast most of them. She also realized that there might be something here to stop her from remembering and, by extension, thinking.

Argh! I'm so stupid! Why didn't I realize that I'm not just sleep-deprived! Twilight thought, while she almost violently moved a rock across the field. This caught the attention of a guard, who noted her behavior down.

Once Twilight finished with that rock, she went back to her thoughts on how she had been feeling recently.

I'm not just tired. Memory loss like this isn't normal! I have to figure out what they've done to me, and quickly! Any creature could notice that I'm not mindless anymore!

Twilight guessed that the creatures who had captured her must have been using some sort of magic, like a spell or potion. She suspected it could be the food, but there were other moments when they would be able to use magic without her knowing. Maybe when she was sleeping- or maybe they inserted something inside her. Maybe it was the collar- or maybe they had discovered a new form of magic that Twilight didn't know about.

Knowing this, Twilight decided that she would now keep herself aware of any opportunity that the creatures had to remove her memories and make her sleepy. She was not going to let them do this to her again!

Chapter IV - Stopping the Spell

Twilight's vow to stay alert was tough to keep, but she was determined to find out what was causing her memory loss.

On top of that, Twilight also had to act like she wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. This meant that she had to restrain herself in the mines to keep from using a levitation spell, and she had to keep her face mundane and emotionless. However, her hardest challenge was to not utter a single word, no matter how quiet, in case any guards overheard her. Twice Twilight had caught herself right before she spoke to a guard. One was to ask a question, and the other was to criticize them from what they had done to the creatures here.

After a long day in the mines, Twilight was almost too hungry to care if they heard her, but she kept her mouth shut as she took her food. Dinner had begun, and dinner meant an opportunity to check for anything that could be the cause of Twilight's memory loss.

First, Twilight needed to wait for the perfect moment to cast a detection spell. It was one of the few spells she could remember, along with levitation, illumination, and possibly even teleportation if she really tried. Twilight guessed that these were the spells that she used most often back in her home. Twilight also knew that other spells existed, but they were at the edge of her memory, and Twilight didn't know what they did, how they worked, and definitely not how to cast them.

As Twilight looked around, she thought that none of the other creatures would report her; they were probably still under the spell, and even if they weren't, then maybe their shared experience would be enough to create a friendship, and they wouldn't report her because of friendship.

Well, I definitely knew a lot about friendship at home, it seems some of that knowledge carried over.

With the other creatures no longer counted as a threat, Twilight focused on the guards. She stared straight ahead at the male creature in front of her, while also watching the guards out of her peripheral vision. She waited for a good opportunity for a few minutes, then the guards just...walked away?

Maybe they're taking a lunch break too? Twilight thought. Whatever the reason was, Twilight wasted no time in casting her spell on the food; the guards could come back at any moment.

Nothing.

There were no spells or strange magic hidden withing the food, just basic nutrients packed into a pile of slop.

Strange...food would be the best way to deliver a potion. Maybe it's in the air?

Twilight cast another detection spell, this time aimed at the air around her, this version of the spell came easier, and Twilight guessed that she may have used it before. Of course, there was nothing. Frowning slightly, Twilight tried one other spot; the collar.

Please work please work please work! I've got no more ideas after this.

This time, Twilight felt the spell return to her. The echo was very, but it was enough that Twilight thought that she could feel a hint of dark magic, or maybe alicorn magic - since they were so similar.

Yea! Thought Twilight. She had found the source of the memory loss; now she had to remember a spell or find another way to stop the collar.

As Twilight internally celebrated her little victory, she failed to notice that the guards had returned. When one of them saw the light of her horn, he realized what he must do next.

. . .

"Hey Xul, have you seen the new prisoner yet?"

"Which one?"

"Uh. Purple," Trine gestured to his red skin, "this big," He bent down a little to show how tall the prisoner was. "quadruped," Trine picked up one of his legs, showing the sleek guards boots. "Kinda looks like one of those things from Earth?" He forgot the name.

"Oh yeah, why?"

"I think that I'm going to take it up for inspection. It might be interesting enough to get me a raise."

"Why? Isn't it just a pastel...horse?"

"Yes, but it's been acting off lately. I think its body is reacting to the formula, and last few times that happened the creatures basically went wild and destroyed everything they could. I'd say preventing that would be good enough to get me a raise."

"What's it doing?"

"Well, it's a lot stronger, it got better at pushing rocks, almost too quickly. And yesterday, when Deam and I came back from our lunch break, it was glowing!"

"Glowing?"

"Yeah! Just its horn though, so probably a weird reaction to the formula, as I said before, it seems like a good enough bet that it'll get me a raise."

"Oh, yeah definitely. Just make sure to tell me when you do that...uh so I know I won't have to keep track of it anymore."

The two guards went the separate ways shortly after, but Xul left feeling nervous. She had lied when she said she didn't want to keep track of it, and now she had to make sure she was on duty to bring in the alien for inspection.

. . .

The next day was incredibly boring for Twilight, and she had really begun to hate her new job- calling it labor was more like it.

Maybe if I could use my magic, everything would be easier, but nooo- these creatures make it so I have to restrain myself. Do they not understand friendship? I bet we could work twice as hard if they improved our living conditions!

Twilight would usually try to stay calm in situations like these (well, she thinks that's what she could do, it's kind of hard to figure that out with so little memory), but now she was starting to become angry at her captors, and her lack of memory, but she knew that she would have to keep up the facade. Twilight found that this was easier to do when she had something else to focus on, and for now, her focus was on the collar. Whenever a guard wasn't looking, Twilight would glance down at it, in hopes of discovering how it worked.

So far, Twilight had discovered that the collar was made out of a type of silver metal and was very thick for its side. It had a green light on the left side of it, and it was very tight around Twilight's neck. Twilight thought that she could feel some cold metal on the side of the collar she couldn't see, and she could hear a faint humming noise emanating from within it. Thinking of the spell she had cast earlier, Twilight guessed that the collar ran mostly off of mechanical devices, and not magic.

If only I knew a spell that could expose the machinery, but I bet that those don't even exist in...Equestria? Yeah, there... For the first time, Twilight felt sadness about being away from her home, even if she couldn't remember it. However, emotions could wait, for now, she had bigger problems to face.

Twilight thought about simply breaking the collar, but that would definitely attract the guards' attention when the noticed she wasn't wearing it. She guessed that the green light would have to stay on.

Maybe there's a spell for something like this? But I can't remember anything...

Twilight racked her brain, trying to puzzle together a solution.

I need some kind of spell to break things, and maybe another spell to keep the green light on.

The alarm rang again - it was time for Twilight to go back to work, where she wouldn't get a chance to cast any more spells...right?

Chapter V - Inspection

Xul was waiting for Trine to show up. He had promised that he would tell Xul when a particular alien was sent for inspection. Xul wanted to make sure that she was on duty when it happened, so she could cover the guard's shifts - most would be grateful for the break.

As she waited, Xul sat down on her bed. The guard's sleeping quarters were usually better than the prisoner's. Each guard was given a loft bed to save space. The top was the bunk bed where each guard slept, and on the bottom was a tall dresser used for storage, which was mostly clothes, toiletries, and a few personal items. Next to the dresser was a small desk, but it was rarely used by the guards since most of them didn't need any paperwork. Right by the ladder to the bed was a stand for a uniform and a weapon or two, so the guards could quickly change in and out of it.

Xul, on the bed, was thinking about the alien that Trine was going to send. Trine had told her that the alien, a small purple horse-like thing, had been acting strange lately. Xul remembered seeing it once or twice while on duty, and its collar was still green, so she guessed that the strange actions reported by Trine were just its reaction to the formula.

"I did it." Xul looked down to see Trine standing there before he turned and walked to the male sleeping quarters.

. . .

Twilight was about halfway through her workday. It seemed that some of her old habits had returned to her because she had become much better at telling the time. Not the actual time, of course, there were no clocks here.

It had been about a day since Twilight had discovered the source of the mind-numbing potion. Since then, Twilight had worked to create a spell that could disable the collar. She was sure that her "old" self could create a spell in much less time, but her memories of magic were still hazy, so it took much longer for her to develop a usable spell. So far, Twilight knew that she could create a permanent green light if she diverted the dark magic that was being generated in the collar into the lightbulb. Dark magic often gave off a greenish hue, which allowed it to have a green Illuminate spell. Twilight also assumed that if she could remember how to cast some sort of a filter spell, then it would be possible to remove the potion that was inside of her, and she could remember things much faster. The only hard part of this was to break the collar.

The collar was currently only half-broken. At some point, the needle in it had snapped, and the potion was coming out of it at a much slower pace. Luckily, the needle didn't snap enough for the light to be triggered and turned off.

Twilight was in the mining area, where there were typically a few guards. Twilight began eyeing them as she worked while moving a boulder across the field, she noticed that one of them had switched shifts with a blue-skinned guard.

When the boulder was put away, Twilight walked back to get another one. This time, she chooses one of the largest ones there, a hexagon-shaped rock that was taller than she was unless she stood on her hind legs. She went behind the boulder, hoping that any of the guards who happened to be looking her way would think that she was going to try and push it from behind.

When she was safely out of their view, Twilight paused and took a deep breath, then smashed her neck on the boulder. It hurt, and Twilight thought that she might get a bruise, but it did the trick, and the collar broke. The light on it went orange, then back to green, and it flickered between those colors a few times before turning red. Luckily, it didn't make any noises or sound an alarm.

Before anyone could notice, Twilight cast her spells; she directed her energy at the light and used a modified telekinesis spell to change the direction of the dark magic, then she reached inside her, searching for any bit of the potion, and moved it out of her. Sadly, this required her to throw up.

Twilight spit out the substance with as little noise as she could make. Then she threw some dirt on it and began moving the large rock, hoping that she hadn't attracted the attention of any of the guards.

With her task completed, Twilight went back to doing her job. She eventually calmed down from the moment of adrenaline and started thinking.

What's the most important thing for me to remember? I should try to remember who I am, but remember magic will probably prove to be more useful.

Twilight chose the latter option.

Okay...So I know how to levitate things and create light, I think that I know how to teleport, but those three can't possibly be all the spells that I should know, right?

Twilight tried to think of other spells, but she was unable to think of any until she remembered something else. Somepony had told her that a good way for her to learn magic was to try it in categories, mainly offensive, defensive, and passive magic. Using that strategy, Twilight began to unravel the mysteries in her mind. She remembered blasts, transfiguration, and shields. Thinking of shields gave her a memory.

Someone I knew was great in shields... who was that?

Armor maybe? Yes, it was something to do with armor...Armor Shining? No, Shining Armor! By BBBFF!

As Twilight remembered more spells, she remembered more of her life.

Gem-finding; Rarity, Spike, and the Diamond Dogs. Dark magic spells; Celestia, Cadence, and the Crystal Empire. Time Travel; Starlight and Starswirl from the edited version, and Pinkie Pie, from the unedited version.

Many of these spells were ones that Twilight could only remember the name of, and she didn't know how to cast them. However, this was enough to make her remember. Pony after pony, and creature after create, one connection led to another until Twilight remembered almost everything about herself and her life.

Although Twilight was trying to keep up her emotionless face, she allowed a slightly smug smile to run across her face in victory. However, that only lasted a few moments, as the gravity of the situation settled upon her, the smile turned into a frown.

Now What? Where am I? What's happened to me? Is Equestria safe? Am I even in Equestria?

A million more questions ran through Twilight's mind, proving that Twilight was back to her normal, worrying self. Usually, many of Twilights' questions were irrelevant, so she would dismiss them for the time, but right now, all of them were important.

There are only two things that I know for sure: I've been ponynapped by creatures who probably aren't a big fan of me, and I need to escape.

. . .

Trine was right - the purple alien really was strange.

Xul had just gotten on duty and was waiting for the call to come through. She had to be there to see the creature get inspected, assuming that the rumors she had overheard were true. Luckily for Xul, she was about to find out.

"EQ-3 had been nominated for inspection, one of the guards who are stationed at the North end of Door C must bring it in."

EQ-3? We've really only had three equines here?

Xul was a bit confused about the number of equines at the mines, but she went along with her plan and told the other guard that she would take care of it. The guard agreed quickly, after all, it was occasionally dangerous to be in the room with aliens.

Xul walked up to the purple alien who was currently moving the chipped-off boulders to the other side of the quarry.

"EQ-3" she commanded. The alien froze and turned its head to look at Xul, and as it did, its eyes enlarged. Xul leaned back in surprise, she had seen creatures pupils dilate when exposed to the bright light of the inspection room, but this alien was strange. For one thing, there was no bright light, and for the other, its eyes grew, not just its pupils.

Xul was trained to recover quickly from shock though, so she directed her focus back onto the task at hand. Xul grabbed her light rope that was hanging from her belt, and the rope looped itself over the neck of the creature. As she did, EQ-3's eyes went back to normal, and Xul continued as planned.

Xul led the alien back out the entrance to the mine, and after going down a hallway past the guards' quarters, she walked up a few flights of stairs. Then, they reached the second story of the building, turned, and walked down another hallway, but this one was brightly lit.

When they entered the bright hallway, Xul looked back at the creature and saw that only it's pupils dilated, making its earlier reaction even stranger.

As they neared the inspection room, Xul pitied the creature. She never liked seeing them being...inspected, but it was a part of the job.

Too soon, they arrived at the door labeled "Inspection & Researched: authorized personnel only" Xul looked at the creature, making sure to duck her head low enough that the security cameras couldn't see her, and she tried to show that she was sorry for it, even though she knew that it couldn't understand her.

Xul paused, then opened the door and went inside the room.

"I have retrieved EQ-3," Xul said, as she stepped to the side of the door, and released her light rope from the alien's neck.

Good, stay there.

Xul turned to look at the scientists and researchers behind the large glass window. In total, there were four creatures behind it. Two of them were of Xul's species, with their blue skin, and the other two looked like Trine, with green skin. One of the ones of Trine's species was an operator, who would handle the machines and computers for the scientists Xul could tell this by the different uniform, while the rest of them were wearing pristine white clothes.

Now that she had delivered the alien, Xul's job was done, and all she had to do now was make sure nothing bad happened during the inspection. In all of the times she's witnessed this, only once had something actually happened, which was when they brought in a radioactive alien who didn't take well to the water tests...fun times.

"EQ-3, walk to the podium." One of the scientists commanded.

The alien walked up to the center of the room where there was a large circular white stand with several tools and machines surrounding it. Once it got there, the researcher spoke.

"We do not know much about this alien, it was taken up unexpectedly when one of our ships made an emergency landing on its planet while coming back from its mission. While there, the crew gathered several pictures, a few language samples, and one prisoner, EQ-3. They were ordered to gather more samples, but the planet was inside the UFF's territory, so it will be a few more months before we can go back.

As the researcher spoke, the wall opposite to the glass window turned into a projector screen. It showed the creature in its natural habitat, this was the part Xul hated the most, and she even envied the creatures like this, because their planets were at peace, for now.

On the projector, Xul saw what looked like an old-fashioned village, the picture was taken from far away, and Xul saw vines and trees in the foreground, then a bunch of houses and shops. They reminded her of Earth and made her feel a bit sad.

"We have noticed that much of the planet, which we have named, EQP, resembles that of Earth. However, the dominant species seems to be some kind of colorful horse, along with two creatures resembling ancient Earth mythology. Those creatures are the unicorns and pegasi, who share the same colors at the other creatures there.

That's not right, Xul thought, There's no way that horses of all creatures became the dominant race, they don't even have hands. I wonder if they are smart.

"These creatures seem to be highly intelligent for alien lifeforms and are about as smart as humans, but they develop at a different pace.

Interesting. Xul thought.

"They crew reports seeing one of the creatures that resembles a pegasus, standing on a cloud. The other, a unicorn, has been seen performing telekinesis. We believe that these creatures have created technology that we cannot figure out how to make, so we are going to use this 'unicorn.'" He paused and extended his long hand towards the creature. "To study their telekinetic abilities."

The researcher signaled something to the operator, who began to type on one of the computers. A few seconds later, Xul heard the machine quietly turn on. She knew that most of them were to collect data and see how the creatures brought up behaved, but some of them were used to perform experiments on the creatures.

"Our first test," the operator began, "is to observe how the creatures act naturally." He turned and asked one of the scientists to speak to it for him, which they did.

"EQ-3, repeat memory. Xul knew that now the creature was experiencing a memory it had, courtesy of the formula inside it.

For a few seconds, nothing happened, and the alien just stared into space, then it turned its head around as if studying its surroundings. It looked around for about 30 seconds, then it started walking around the room, mostly heading towards the edges of the room, while still looking around. It had gone to the wall with the exit on it, then moved to the wall with the glass window. Finally, it walked off into the center of the room, and it started stamping its front hoof. It did this several times before it started stamping booth hooves, and was making lots of noise.

"End memory" one of the blue scientists said, and the alien stopped stomping and once again stood at attention.

"It appears that we will not be able to gather much data from its memories, so we will move on to studying the telekinesis reported by its captors." The worker said, talking to the scientists.

"Walk back to the podium." One said, and the alien did as it was told. When it got there, the other guard walked out and put it's helmet out in front of the alien.

"EQ-3, use your telekinetic abilities to transfer the item back to its owner.

The creature stepped down from the podium and walked toward the helmet. When it was about a foot away, its horn began to glow. A dark purple aura surrounded the horn and the helmet, lifting it up. The creature stared intensely at the helmet as it traveled back to the guard, and was set down on his head. Xul looked over at the scientists, to seem them smiling like a kid with candy.

Here we go then... Xul thought, wishing that the alien didn't show off its abilities.

"It appears that the crew was telling the truth."

Everyone stood up and began talking to each other, they were probably debating on what to do next. Xul saw three of them (not including the operator) taking a vote, it was a unanimous decision, and Xul guessed that she knew what they voted for.

"Science we will soon be in possession of countless of the creatures, we will use this one as a prototype. It appears that the telekinetic abilities have forme in the horn of this creature, meaning that their technology is implanted in it. We want to examine this piece of technology further, so we are going to perform an operation to remove its horn."

Xul heard another machine turn on, and she wished that she could look away, several times she had seen things like this happen, and it was necessary for her to observe it. If anything goes wrong, or even if the operation succeeds, she will need to report it back to her boss.

Out of the mess of machines, a fast-spinning blade emerges, along with several clamps to hold down the creature. Even the mind-numbing formula couldn't suppress all of the pain.

The blade closed in, but before it could get within a foot of the alien, it jumped off of the podium!

"Sretsnom uoy...uoy htiw gnorw si taht?!" the alien yelled at the scientists and researchers. The other guard, who had better reflex time than Xul, sprinted up to confront the alien, and he pulled out his gun. Xul was only putting her hand on hers, and she was trying to appear too shocked to shoot.

"Oh my gosh it's sentient!" a scientist yelled

"Someone shoot it!" said the operator, in a panicked voice.

"What if it attacks?" Asked another.

Chaos erupted in the inspection room, and the screams were apparently loud enough to attract the attention of two guards who had been coming down the hall at that time because they both burst into the room, with guns drawn.

Seeing the open door, the alien made a break for it, but Xul, on instinct, slammed it shut, and the other guards closed in around the alien. They formed a semi-circle around it, and one of the guards pulled out their light rope, and the others joined in. One of the ropes went around the creature's front hoof, and the other hooked around its neck.

Now, the creature looked very afraid as it struggled to break free from its bonds. Xul joined the circle, shooting her light rope out, but she only managed to half-loop it around its body. The creature had begun screaming, but then its expression changed and its eyes lit up. Then, it closed its eyes, and a purple light shot out of its horn, engulfed the creature, and it was gone, leaving only the collar behind.

Author's Note

I'm sorry that this one took so long to get out.

Chapter VI - On the Run

The collar lay there on the floor, its high-pitch hum being the only thing to make noise. The rest of the room was dead silent. The guards were concerned, most of them had signed on for an easy job, or they had been drafted. Either way most didn't pay attention to the special protocols, including what to do if there is even an escaped prisoner. That was because there never was one.

Xul had been at three mining research facilities in her life, including Terram, the one that she was currently stationed at. In all of her time at those three, she never remembered hearing about an escaped prisoner, much less having to deal with one. Terram wasn't the highest security prison she knew, that would be Satria. The lowest security would be Mana, it was built for very unintelligent life forms.

While Xul stood there trying to remember what to do, the rest of the guards were looking at the scientists. Although the scientists were technically a higher position that the guards, they knew even fewer protocols and codes because they were never meant to have to deal with them. One of the scientists was looking back at the guards, looking very worried. However, the rest of them were looking at the collar that lay on the floor, and they were all thinking the same thing; it. Just. Teleported.

Teleportation was not new to them, but it was rare to witness because the energy and machines required to teleport something the size of a box required a machine the size of a very large room.

Xul thought that teleportation technology reminded her of how computers used to be the size of rooms (it was something she learned in history class). She estimated that for something the size of that alien to be teleported, the machine would have to be as big as two or three rooms!

Whoever freed this thing must really want it back, I hope that they aren't going to attack us with it. Xul thought.

After a few more seconds of stunned silence, one of the guards ran off, probably to raise awareness of what happened or to try and find the alien. Once he started moving, everyone else began to jump back into action. Xul saw two guards start calling in something on their headphones, and the machine operator begin frantically typing something on his computer. Shortly after, an announcement was made.

"Attention all staff members and guards: a prisoner has just escaped via teleportation. The prisoner, EQ-3, is light purple, walks on 4 legs, is short, has one horn on its head, and is not wearing its collar. EQ-3 was last seen in the inspection room. This is a code..." There was a pause, and the sound of paper turning in the background before the announcer came back on. "code Black, every available staff or guard must begin searching for EQ-3, or those who teleported it."

. . .

Twilight was very panicked when she teleported, and as a result, she didn't plan very far ahead. She teleported to the only place that she knew how to get to from the white room, which was the mines.

Out of habit, Twilight had planned to teleport behind one of the stalactites in the mine and fly up there to wait it out. The first part went well, and Twilight was behind a stalactite. However, she forgot one small detail which led the rest of her plan to fail. Twilight forgot that she couldn't fly because she was still wearing the uniform which just so happened to hide her wings.

As she poofed into existence behind a stalactite, Twilight remembered this fact, but she did not think to levitate herself. That was one of her "fatal flaws," forgetting some very useful spells right when she needed them. Twilight mentally smacked herself for forgetting her wings were hidden as she fell downwards.

Smack!

Twilight fell hoof-first into the stone floor. Luckily, she wasn't seriously injured, but it was still very painful.

"Oof!" Twilight groaned, then she looked up at the entrance. There was only one guard there, and he was staring at her with deep confusion and a hint of fear in his eyes. However, it didn't look like he was immediately coming after her, which gave Twilight enough time to get back on her feet. She guessed that she couldn't pretend that she was still under the mind control spell, so she frantically began looking around for another exit. As she did this, an announcement came on. It was similar to the ones that she heard before, but this time Twilight couldn't understand what it meant. The guard, on the other hand, could clearly understand this language because he touched his ear and started saying something.

Then, he grabbed his rope that looked like the one that another guard had used to lead her into the white room. Twilight wasn't sure what he meant to do with the rope, but by his cautious movement towards her, she guessed that he meant to either try and talk to her, or to capture her.

Normally, Twilight would have stayed around to talk, but this time she was much to panicked to do so, and Fluttershy wasn't there to calm her down. With this in mind, Twilight began running away from the exit, and into the rest of the mine.

The guard was briefly surprised by her sudden burst of movement, but he soon began chasing her. The guard was not as fast as Twilight was since he moved on only two feet, but he did have more stamina. Twilight had a head start on him, but as she made her way through the mine, she kept bumping into creatures and slowing down to make sure they were okay before continuing, letting the guard catch up.

"What do you want?!" Twilight yelled over to him, although she figured that the guard didn't know Ponish.

As the space between the two decreased, Twilight knew that she couldn't outrun the guard. Quickly, she began yanking on her uniform so that she could free her wings. Twilight didn't spot any wings or other means of flight on the guard, so she guessed that the ceiling would be a safe place for her to go. Especially since none of them seemed to have a horn or other projectile weapons, so they couldn't shoot at her.

Twilight tugged on the suit with her levitation as the guard came closer and closer. The uniform was very stretchy and clingy, so it was hard to remove. Soon, Twilight had managed to get her front hooves free, but her back hooves and wings were still stuck. When she looked behind her, Twilight saw that the guard was close enough to her that he began slowing down, with his rope held out like a weapon. Seeing this gave Twilight enough motivation and fear that she yanked the rest of the uniform off of her.

With the uniform on the ground, Twilight spread her wings out, once again surprising the guard. She leaped into the air and began flying, or she tried to anyway. Her wings were very stiff from not being used for Celestia knows how long, and the air in the mine was different from what she was used to, so Twilight ended up doing more of a large leap than flying. She landed a few feet behind the guard. However, she quickly adjusted and was able to jump up again and stay in the air, but it took her much more effort than it did back in Equestria.

The guard tried throwing his rope up at Twilight, trying to grab and pull her down, but it didn't work. Twilight flew up to the ceiling, defying all laws of physics that he knew of, then dropped down like a bird and glided over to the exit. He chased after her, but Twilight's wings were faster than his legs, and she made it to the door before he did. The door seemed to open for the creature as it glided out of the mine and into the hallway.

Author's Note

The next chapter will be out very soon, I was originally going to combine them, but I decided to keep them separate.

Chapter VIII - Into the unknown

Their plan wasn't the best, and Twilight wasn't sure what half of the writings meant. However, it was the only plan that she had, so she was going to go with it.

The group had managed to share names while trying to communicate. Twilight had figured out that the leading creature who looked like someone from the mirror world was named Zeck Stone. She had also figured out that her location was called Terram.

While making the plan, Zeck had shown that he knew the general layout of Terram, and he had come up with a way to get out. Twilight didn't understand most of what he was trying to say, but she figured that she could just follow the others who seemed to understand because they spoke the same language as Zeck.

When they were figuring out the plan, one of the creatures pointed to the door and made a pushing movement, he turned to his side and moved his hands out as if he was pushing on a wall, then extended them like he was pushing away from the wall. He wanted to push the door down to get out, but another creature pointed to a wire leading from the door to the ceiling. Twilight guessed that this was a spell put on the dor to either keep them from pushing it down or to alert the guards when it was opened.

Twilight figured that since the spell was visible, it was probably not very strong, and therefore she could teleport through it.

"Look please," Twilight repeated this a few times to get the creatures' attention, then she teleported herself a few beds down and back. This caused several surprised looks, gasps, and a few creatures even backed away from her. Zeck was one of the ones to look surprised.

Twilight then pointed to the door with her hoof, and teleported again, hoping that the understood that she could teleport them. The group looked very hesitant at that idea, so instead, they were going to try and break it down. Twilight thought that this was a bad idea because of the spell on the door, but she was also relieved, and confused. There are soo many creatures here, it would take way too much energy to teleport them all through. But why do they not want to be teleported? It's as if they have never seen magic before.

With or without teleportation, the plan was finished, and now they were going to put it into action. Zeck said something to the group, and they all began moving towards the door, with Twilight following behind them.

. . .

Ash watched the purple alien freeing the others, and start trying to communicate with them. She knew that she should alert the guards and higher-ups right away, but she reasoned that it would be okay if she waited for a little while. After all, how far could they get on their own?

Ash enjoyed watching others, even though she usually never talked to them. It helped her become better at reading people, acting (a hobby of hers), and understanding other life forms. She found it interesting to see how the aliens communicated with each other by writing things down and acting things out (like an intense game of charades). Though this time, the purple creature had captured most of her attention.

The creature showed that it could levitate things, which was something that she knew about by watching the footage from the inspection room. However, it also could transform an object into a new object, and teleport! When Ash saw these things happen, she felt excited, awestruck, and even a little sad.

Ash was mostly loyal to the Sectanium and the rest of the Mandors, but she felt a little bad at how quickly the UFF was loosing, they were just pathetic compared to the power of the Sectaniums and their Warriors. Ash knew that the creature would likely be captured again even with its ability to teleport and that the scientists would probably figure out a way to use its abilities like they have been doing with the other creatures at Terram. Once they could teleport quickly and make objects at will, they would be even more powerful, and the UFF would appear even more pathetic.

The UFF wasn't pathetic because the lacked support, and they currently controlled 1/4 to 1/3 of the universe, while the Sectanium and Mandors controlled the rest. They were also just as organized as them, and had very skilled soldiers, however, they were losing people quickly, because the Sectaniums had one thing that the UFF didn't; mind control.

While Ash didn't support the UFF, she did like how there were no Warriors on their side, meaning they offered much more freedom. Hence their name, United Freedom Fighters. Due to her conflicted and feelings and own interests, Ash waited on alerting everyone and only called it in once the creatures had broken down their door, and were heading up towards the ships.

. . .

Twilight, Zeck, and all of the other creatures were off and running. Zeck was in the lead, and Twilight was trailing behind. Zeck had led them all up several flights of stairs, occasionally passing guards on the way. Whenever they encountered them, about 5 or so creatures would jump on them, and only get off once one of them had taken an item off of the guard's belt. The guard would then raise his hands in the air and would run away. Twilight felt that this was a strange tactic to overpower someone, but it worked so she never protested.

In a few minutes, they had reached a room that was marked on their escape plan. It had the symbol of a strange-looking shape on it, and when Twilight entered the room, she saw that the walls were lined with the ropes, uniforms, and other strange objects that the guards had on them. Most of the creatures went to get a rectangular-shaped object, so Twilight headed the join them. She picked up one of them in her levitation field and saw that it had a hole on one side of it and a trigger on the other.

Twilight looked into the hole in the object, but one of the creatures saw he do this, and they yanked it away from her. They looked very panicked with her holding the object, and Twilight lifted her paper to try and ask why, but a shout came out from one of the creatures near the entrance, which drew her attention away.

Twilight turned to the doorway of the room and say many, many, many guards standing outside it, each pointing an object at them similar to the one that the creatures took.

"Uh..." Twilight said, feeling panicked.

"Surrender." Twilight heard one of the guards tell them, but they didn't exactly say it. It was in the same type of language that she heard come from the announcements, and for a moment she almost felt relieved, thinking that they spoke Ponish, before remembering the meaning of the message.

Twilight wasn't sure what to do, she didn't want to surrender to the guards, and she guessed that the others didn't either, but she also had no idea how to fight them if she had to. Her shields and blasts might not affect the guards and their weapons and armor. Luckily, she didn't get a choice.

Wizz!!

Something glowing came flying from behind Twilight's head, and she felt her mane pick up from the wind of it. Twilight saw and felt several more of them coming from behind and in from of her, so she ducked down, covering her heads with her hooves, and forgot about trying to put up a shield.

As the guards shot at them, they moved into a line that blocked the exit, and slowly advanced into the room. The other creatures were ducking and dodging now but were still aiming their objects at the guards. One of the braver ones charged at the guards with his item, but he only knocked a few of them to the floor before he was captured in their rope.

Amid the chaos, Twilight spotted one guard in the back. It, or she, was one of the blue guards, and she wasn't shooting at them, but instead staring, she seemed to almost be sad.

"Evom!" Zeck shouted as he kicked Twilight out of the way of an oncoming guard. She felt a bit of pain in her side where she was kicked and she landed in a tangle of hooves and hair. She watched as Zeck tackled the guard that was attacking and he started hitting him with his weapon.

Why aren't any of them taking defensive positions? Twilight wondered. None of the guards or other creatures were defending their position, or even trying to block attacks. When Twilight and her friends fought, they would usually try blocking or other ways to stop their opponents rather than outright hurting them.

Thinking about Equestria made Twilight long to be back home with her friends. She watched as the creatures on her side of the battle were being pushed further and further into the room. They were outnumbered and didn't have armor as the guards did. She didn't want to be recaptured, she wanted to go home!

I have to do something! Twilight thought as she stood up, making sure to keep her head low to avoid any flying objects.

Since she didn't know how to use the projectile weapons that everyone else was using, Twilight decided to try her weapons and hoped that they would be at least somewhat effective. Her horn lit up as she created a shield around herself and the rest of her allies. The guards weren't phased by this, as they continued shooting at them. The shield held up, but cracks were forming quickly, and Twilight was struggling to keep it up. To her, it felt like an alicorn or a powerful unicorn was blasting at her shield each time a glowing projectile hit it.

Who got ahold of a shield?
"dleihs a fo dloha tog ohw?" One of the creatures said, before looking at her, "Twilight?!"

A few of the creatures close turned to look at her in surprise, but Twilight didn't take notice of them. She was preparing herself to break her shield. Twilight looked at the guards, and noticed that some of them had given up on using their weapons, and were instead running and slamming sideways into the shield. When they got close again, Twilight contracted her shield, forcing everyone inside to get very close together. Then, the rapidly expanded her shield and broke it once it became large again. This caused the running guards to fly off and knock into the walls and guards behind them.

"Run! Run!" Twilight shouted. She wanted her friends to get past the guards and hopefully lead them all to the triangle thing marked on the plan. Twilight jumped up and spread her wings, taking flight. She flew up and over the guards, afraid that the weapons would shoot her down. When she was close to the end of the clump of guards, she turned and looked behind her to make sure that her friends were following her. Twilight saw them running through the guards who were either getting back on their feet or shooting at them in the chaos. One of the shots hit a creature in the back, making them fall momentarily, before getting back up and running.

When Twilight turned back around, she flew right into the guard she saw earlier. She was now shooting with the rest of the guards, but when Twilight hit her she got knocked off balance and started flailing her arms wildly to keep from falling. Twilight stopped for a moment when she hit her but then continued flying off, with many of the creatures now in front of her.

Twilight flew a few feet behind them since they knew where they were going, and she didn't. They reached the end of the hallway and turned right. In the next hallway, they ran until they reached a very large door that opened upwards. Twilight landed and slowed down a little before entering. This made her distance between the creatures in the front greater, but she was closer to those in the back who were not as fast, or who had been injured during the fight.

Once they were all through the door, Twilight saw that the room was very large, and had a floating object that appeared to be powering on in the center of it. It looked vaguely like the drawing on the plan, so Twilight figured that this was where they needed to get to. The object was slowly flying upwards, as Zeck and some others were already on it. The entrance to it was far too high for any creature to jump, and they didn't have time to grab some of the boxes lying around and make steps because the guards were very close behind.

Twilight was going to fly up to the object, but she remembered that the others didn't have wings and no other way of getting to it. Twilight knew that the creatures probably wouldn't like to be teleported since they were hesitant earlier, but she gathered up her remaining magical strength and teleported every creature nearby without looking at who she was teleporting. This made her accidentally teleport one extra creature; the sad-looking guard from earlier.

"Go! Go!" Twilight yelled, her voice rang loud, but she sounded very out-of-breath. She was in the middle of a cluster of creatures who she had just teleported into the front of the object. Zeck and a few of the other creatures were sitting in chairs surrounded by buttons, levers, lights, steering wheels, and other pieces of machinery, including some glowing things that Twilight didn't recognize. They were moving frantically, pressing buttons and adjusting settings, when Zeck spotted the guard who Twilight had mistakenly teleported.

Zeck stood up and grabbed a nearby creature and sat him down in his seat. That creature then began doing the same thing Zeck had been doing while he was running over to Twilight and the disoriented guard. Zeck was now a few feet in front of them, and Twilight was off to the side. Zeck raised the weapon that he used earlier, about to shoot at the guard.

"Wait, wait!" Yelled the guard as she backed away holding her hands in the air, "I'm on your side!" The guard spoke in the strange language that Twilight could understand, and Zeck seemed to understand it too. He hesitated for a moment, before shooting the guard.

Crack!

The glowing object from the weapon ricocheted off of a shield that Twilight produced in front of the guard. The shield cracked and then dispersed into the air. The guard had surrendered, and Twilight didn't want to hurt anyone who might be a friend, especially if they could offer a form of communication for Twilight. Zeck looked over at Twilight, looking very angry and confused as if he was saying "why in Equestria did you do that?" Twilight moved over to stand in between them and shook her head, hoping that would keep Zeck and any other creature from hurting the guard for the time being.

Then, Twilight turned to the guard, and asked: "Can you understand me?"

"I don't speak your language." Replied the guard, sinking Twilight's hoped of finding someone who spoke Ponish. Twilight's ears drooped as the guard turned to address Zeck, "As I said before, I'm on your side, I'm a spy." Zeck said something that Twilight couldn't understand, but it didn't matter. While Zeck was speaking, Twilight felt the adrenaline rush wearing off now that they were safe. She began to feel very tired, so she sat down to try and regain some energy, but instead, she fell asleep.

The last thing that she heard the guard was was "Thank you."

. . .

What should I do?

Xul had overheard that the higher-ups at Terram were going to bring in a Warrior to sort out the chairs caused by the escaped alien, and hopefully find whoever was responsible. For most of the workers, this wouldn't have been an issue. They were all told, "if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear." However, Xul did have something to hide, so she had something to fear. Xul, like most others, was afraid of the Warriors, and she knew that if one of them came to Terram, they would find out that she was a spy for the UFF in no time, and she would be punished or killed. Xul knew this was a possibility when she signed up for this job, but she also knew that if the time came to it, she would have to either run away or kill herself before the Warrior could get information off of her. Her officer told her that killing herself would be the best option, but as loyal as Xul was to the fight, she knew that she could never force herself to do that. Instead, she chose to run away and alerted the officer of her plan.

Xul didn't pack anything other than what she wore as a guard because her change to escape came much sooner than she had hoped. When the purple alien escaped with several others, Xul chased after them, hoping to "accidentally" escape with them. Xul was sad when it looked like they were going to lose the fight, but the purple alien showed off even more strange abilities like shield casting and teleportation! Neither of these was new to Xul, but seeing something so small teleport and cast a very powerful shield was amazing.

When the aliens escaped to the spaceship, Xul jumped over to their side at the last second and was teleported with them onto the ship. On the ship, she was almost killed by a human, but the purple alien stopped him from killing her.

Now, Xul was on the ship with all of the other aliens and humans, and she was tasked with watching over the purple alien as it slept. She figured that the captain, Zeck, had given her this job because he still didn't trust her, so she was given a mundane and unimportant job...Until the creature started dreaming.

. . .

Trine made sure that the rest of the guards were asleep before he crept into the female sleeping quarters. Xul had just ditched all of them, but she left most of her stuff.

He walked slowly past the sleeping guards in the dark, keeping his flashlight pointed downwards and close to the floor. Occasionally he stopped at an empty bed to see if it was Xul's, but most belonged to some unlucky guard who had to handle the night shift. After a few rows of beds, she found Xul's.

Like all of the other beds, Xul's was a loft, and she had left her spare uniform and a few items out on her desk. Trine rummaged through her things, trying to find anything valuable.

He ended up with and extra light rope, some batteries, and a throwaway with a message on it. Trine picked up the small square object and squinted to read the text in the dark. A throwaway was similar to a burner phone in that it was only used once, but the message and any reply could still be seen for an Earth day after because it took that long to hack into it unless someone found either person's throwaway like Trine did.

This is A-X, Warrior coming 2 Ter. Dropping mission.

A-X? Is that her name? Trine thought, no, her name is Xul. Xul...uh... Xul Sona. Maybe it's her nickname? And who's she messaging, and about what mission? Trine was very confused, he knew that a Warrior was coming, but it was strange to see Xul like this. He always thought of her as a sentimental, but loyal, guard. Now she seemed a bit tougher if she is taking special missions like this.

Trine was bout to continue his search through her things, but another guard started moving around a lot in her sleep, which startled Trine. He turned off his flashlight, grabbed the rest of Xul's things, including the throwaway, and ran off with his mind running wild.

Is Xul really who she says she is?

Chapter IX - The Dream

"Are you sure that you looked everywhere, sister?" Celestia asked. She and Spike had been covering for Twilight's duties in her absence, so she only ever saw Luna at sundown. After a few days without seeing any sign of Twilight, Luna was tasked with looking through the dream realm to find her. However, it had been 13 days, and Twilight was nowhere in sight.

"I have, but she seems to have just... vanished. Did you tell the others yet?" Luna said,

"I didn't, but I know Spike sent a message to Thorax, Ember, and Cadance. They are starting to worry that a new threat has taken Twilight. Are you sure that you looked everywhere?"

"I am sure, but I will check again tonight. I'm sure that she's safe. Remember, she knows a lot about magic, and I'm sure that she's smart enough to figure things out on her own. If she wants to be found, she'll find us soon." Luna reasoned.

"Do you think she might not want to be found?" Celestia asked, hesitantly.

"Well no, but it is still a possibility." then Luna mumbled, "it's better than some of the other options."

"What'd you say, Luna?" Celestia questioned.

"Nothing, sister."

"Luna," Celestia commanded, trying to make her sister tell her what she had said.

"It's not good for you to worry, and I need to continue my search." Thinking that tonight, Luna may find Twilight, Celestia gave up on questioning her.

"Okay, good luck, I hope that you find her."

"Thank you," Luna watched Celestia walk off to one of the guest suites. Her old room was occupied by Twilight, and if she was going to come back soon, then it wouldn't be right to rearrange it. Once Celestia was gone, Luna gazed out at the stars behind the stained glass window depicting Twilight and her friends battling herself as Nightmare Moon.

If I can't find Twilight soon, then she's either hiding from us, sleeping during the day, in a coma, gone, or worse; dead. Twilight smart though, she wouldn't allow herself to be killed, especially if someone was in danger. I'll find her soon.

Luna broke her gaze from the stars and walked up next to Twilight's throne. Then, she performed a spell to enter the dream realm.

In the dream realm, there were many glowing blue balls, each representing a pony or other creature that was sleeping. The dimmer the ball, the less magic they had. Aside from Celestia, most of the balls were about the same brightness level.

Luna saw that most of the ponies were having good dreams, but a few were having nightmares. Luna was tempted to help those having nightmares, but she knew that she had to keep looking for Twilight.

The dream realm was about half the size of Equestria, so Luna was able to cover the whole planet in a few hours by floating around. She also used an echoing spell to be able to find any trace of Twilight's magic, so she wouldn't have to look at each dream. She found several dreams of ponies she knew, most being Twilight's friends, but none of them responded to her echo spell.

After Luna had covered Equestria's portion of the dream realm, she ventured out into the other kingdoms, including the Crystal Empire, the Changling Kingdom, Seaquestria, Mount Eris, and many other places. Eventually, she had reached the end of the dreamscape. After that, there were presumably no more creatures living out there, since it was outer space. The dream world was flat, unlike their planet, so Luna was able to float out into outer space very easily. Last night when Luna reached this place, she had turned around and given up for the night, but this time she was more desperate, so she cast another echo spell.

Nothing.

Luna tried again, this time using a more powerful version of the spell.

Nothi-wait.

Luna felt a very fain speck of magic echo back to her. It was so faint that she couldn't tell if it was Twilight's magic or that of something else, but she decided to head out to it.

Luna flew very far, checking every so often to make sure that she was heading in the direction of the magic. Eventually, she felt the signal return stronger, but she was getting weaker. The farther away she went from Equestria, the harder it was to keep herself in the dream realm.

I must've traveled at least the distance of Equestria by now. Luna thought. She had spent so much time in the dream realm that the sunrise was now only an hour away. However, she soon saw a blue glowing light off in the distance; it was Twilight's dream. Luna was confused about how Twilight ended up so far away, but she kept going. When she was close, Luna saw several faint glowing blue balls, but she ignored them and went over to Twilights'.

I've found her! Luna thought, excitedly. She looked into the image of Twilight's dream and saw that she was having a nightmare.

. . .

To say that Twilight was overwhelmed was an understatement, Twilight was having a full-on panic attack. The guards from Terram had arrived at Equestria, and it was up to Twilight to fend them off all by herself. Twilight was panting as the guards surrounded her next to the walls of Canterlot. She looked around for an opening in their line as she backed up, feeling a sense of panic rise up in her throat. Then, she hit the outside wall of Canterlot and felt herself suffocating as the guards closed in around her. Then, a bright light occurred, and all of the guards disappeared, replaced by Luna surrounded by a glowing white magic bubble. It was similar to the one that she had seen when fighting the Tantabus.

"Luna?! How'd you get here?! Wait...This is a dream, isn't it!?" Twilight said, relieved that the recent events did not just happen.

"Twilight!" Luna cried, she looked very happy to see her, but there was also a bit of concern in her expression.

"Luna! I've missed you, and Spike, and Starlight, and Celestia, and all of my friends! It has been so hard here without you all! Wait...was everything a dream? It felt like several days!" Twilight said.

"It has been 13 days, actually. The only thing that was a dream was the strange creatures in Canterlot."

Twilight looked a bit sad at this, it felt like a weight had been lifted off her, then put right back on. "Oh, okay then. How come you never contacted me in those 13 days? I know I wasn't mentally there for the first few, but what about last night? Oh no! Were you captured by them as well?! Where's everypony else?!" Twilight bombed Luna with questions.

"I tried to find you," Luna replied, "but you are so far off in the dream realm that I don't think you're even on our planet anymore, that's why I have this bubble around me, as it takes lots of effort to stay here. I don't know what you are talking about with being captured, but I assure you that we are all safe." Luna spoke in a calmer tone than Twilight, but she was worried after hearing a little about what Twilight went through.

"So they're okay? Tell them that I'll get back to Equestria as soon as I can!" Twilight said.

"I will, but I need to leave now, the Sun is rising here, and I can feel my powers weakening. I'm glad that you are okay." Luna said

Twilight looked panicked and sad seeing that Luna was leaving. "Wait! Can't you stay?" she asked, like a filly, "Which direction was I in the dream realm?!"

"Northeast," Luna said, before disappearing in a flash of light.

"Luna!" Twilight yelled, the first familiar face, and familiar creature, that she had seen in days had just disappeared, and Twilight felt her confusion and panic resurface as she woke up screaming.

Twilight calmed herself down enough to stop screaming, and instead, she pulled the covers of her bed over her, and she hid from everything outside. That is until she heard a knock on the door.

Chapter X - Heading Off

"Uh, is everything alright in there?" Twilight heard a female guard say, it was probably the one she had teleported here earlier. Twilight was hiding under the covers of her bed. The blanket felt sleek and shiny, but still warm. She suspected that it traped her body heat in it because it was black.

"Can you say 'sey' if you are okay? The guard asked.

"Sey," Twilight responded, just barely loud enough for the guard to hear.

Twilight felt troubled and anxious now that she had seen Luna. It made her want to get back to her friends and family even more than before, which put a giant weight on her shoulders that made her unmotivated to get up. Twilight wanted to go home, and she wanted to protect her newly appointed country. However, she was unable to find the motivation to solve her problem, and her friends weren't there to help her get out of her slump. She lay in bed for several more minutes, urging herself to get out of bed, but also finding excuses. Twilight tried to calm her mind down using the technique that Cadance taught her, but it only made her think about Equestria again. Eventually, panic overtook her sadness as she realized she didn't know much about this world or where she was. This panic led to her getting motivated to find some books and papers.

Twilight hopped off of the bed and looked around at her room. It was small, just large enough to fit a bed, closet, and a small desk. The room was lit by a single light at the top, there were two other light units, but only one of them was on, casting a dim light, almost with a bluish tint in it.

Twilight walked over the door and tried to figure out how to open it. The door didn't have any locks or handles and it didn't open when she pushed on it.

"Any creature out there?" she called, hoping that the guard she heard earlier was still there.

"Sorry, but I can't understand you" The guard said, but Twilight was still happy to hear her.

"No, can you let me out?" Twilight asked.

"Do you want food or water?

"Out," Twilight repeated, slowly

"Bathroom?"

"O...U...T" Twilight said again, even slower this time

"You want to leave?"

"Yes!" Twilight said, with exaggerated enthusiasm to make sure the guard understood her.

"I'm not authorized to let you out until you meet with Captain Zeck."

Twilight wasn't having that. She needed to find her way home, and the ship was the safest place she had been so far to do that. Twilight asked to be let out again, putting anger in her voice, but it was denied.

"I will alert Captain Zeck that you wish to speak with him sooner."

Twilight wasn't bothered by having a meeting or even having to wait for someone. However, she felt like she was just another prisoner here. She decided that she had recovered enough to teleport, so she made a blind jump to the other side of the door.

"OW!" yelled the guard, using her normal voice this time. Twilight had teleported right in front of her, which caused the guard to be pushed violently to the floor as Twilight landed on top of her.

"Sorry!" Twilight called to the guard, as she got off her and took off flying down the halls. She had to jump a few times again as the gravity had changed slightly.

Twilight flew down the hallways, stopping to try and open each door that she passed, but most looked like rooms just like hers. Eventually, she arrived at a larger room, with a few tables scattered around it. She saw Zeck and several other creatures crowded around another creature who was talking to them all. By the way that he was talking, it looked like he was telling a story. His four arms were flying around the place, and his face was very exaggerated.

Twilight lingered in the doorway for a second. She was mesmerized by the creature's story even though she didn't understand what he was saying. When she turned to leave and continue her search, Zeck noticed her.

"Twilight!" he cheerfully called as he sat up and walked toward her. The other creatures there turned to look at her too, including the storytelling one, who also stood up and joined Zeck. The rest of the creatures watched Zeck and the other lead Twilight out the door, before turning back and starting to talk amongst themselves.

Twilight let herself be escorted to another room in the ship with a small table in it. When the arrived, Zeck pulled out a small, thin, rectangular device, and started talking into it. Twilight looked at him with confusion, but then the other creature said something to her which drew her attention away.

"What?" Twilight asked, confused

"Chmone," he said, using one of his hands to point to himself. Twilight was still confused, so he repeated it a little slower. Then, Twilight understood that he was saying his name.

"Oh, uh. . . Twilight," she said, pointing to herself with her hoof.

Just then the guard Twilight evaded earlier walked into the room. Twilight felt herself grow tense, hoping that she wasn't there to put her back into the room.

Chmone approached the guard and said something to her, and Twilight just watched them talk awkwardly, feeling a bit out of place.

"Hello Twilight, I am Xul." the guard said, addressing her. I am going to be serving as a one-way translator between us for now. Everything after this will be directly translating what Captain Zeck and Co-captain Chmone here are saying." The guard, Xul, turned back to look at Zeck who was sitting at the table next to Chmone.

Zeck said something to Xul, who translated it to Twilight.

"I'm sure that you are probably very confused right now, but my crew and I are working on a translator so we can more thoroughly explain everything to you. However, we need samples of your language and translations for it to work. Could you please help us with this?"

Twilight nodded, and Chmone took out a small rectangular object and tapped on it for a few seconds, before saying something to Zeck and the guard.

"What is the name of your language?" The guard asked,

"Ponish" Twilight replied.

"How do you say 'yes' in Ponish?"

"Yes"

"And what about 'no,' how do you say 'no' in Ponish?" Twilight felt like the creatures were talking down to her with how they were wording things, but she kept going.

"No," she said

"What is the name of your home?" Twilight felt sad again, and she decided that as soon as this was done, she was going back on the hunt for books and maps, and would ask Xul to help her.

"Equestria," she said, flatly. They continued asking her things such as 'why,' 'maybe,' 'I don't know,' 'look,' and many other simple statements. After about 15 minutes had passed, Chmone got up and left, and Zeck, through Xul, said that they were done.

"It will take us some time to get translators working for your languages. Until then, you are free to wander around the ship as long as Xul, me, Chmone, or another guard is with you."

They don't trust me, do they? Twilight thought. They talked down to me before, and now I have to be escorted everywhere. Twilight looked over at Xul, who had a mostly blank expression. When she turned back to face Zeck, she saw that he was already leaving. The doors seemed to open for him, and then close once he had passed them, leaving her alone with Xul.

"Do you want to go back to your room?" Xul asked, and Twilight shook her said. "Okay then, I'm not going to waste time trying to figure out what you want, so just lead and I will follow you."

Twilight noticed that Xul when she was speaking on her own, didn't talk down to her like the others did. She started to respect Xul for this.

"Uh. . ." Twilight started to say. She looked around the room for an object to turn into paper and a quill, or pen. Xul just stared at her.

"I know I said I wouldn't ask, but...do you want me to show you around?" Xul said.

I'm not interested in exploring at the moment, but that will probably lead me to some maps and books so... Twilight nodded.

"Okay, come with me." Xul said, as she walked toward the door.

Twilight followed Xul around the spaceship. Xul showed her where the bathrooms and bedrooms were first. Then, she led Twilight to the front of the ship where a few creatures were piloting it. After that, they went to the meeting and dining rooms, then to a room near the top of the ship. It had mostly see-through roofs and walls. However, one wall was covered in a giant map-like thing with several books and papers on shelves next to it, and another wall, the one Twilight, and Xul were at, had some light and the door on it.

"This is the observatory, if you notice, you can see that the map over there has a bright orange dot on it. That dot represents us, and it shows us where we are in the local solar system, galaxy, or the universe if you know what those are. Anyway, we use it to chart courses and find paths, but the newest ships have switched into smaller and more concise digital maps, which are only in the pilot room. Anyway, not much to see here, but I can teach you about it later if you want." Xul turned to leave, but Twilight stopped her hoof on the floor to get her attention.

"No," she said.

"Sorry?"

"Stay," Twilight said, but it wasn't one of the words that she had taught them, and even if it was, Xul probably wouldn't have remembered it.

"I don't know that word," Xul said, and she turned back to the door, gesturing to Twilight to follow, but Twilight walked further into the room. "Aren't you coming, Twilight?" Xul asked.

"No."

"So... you want to stay here?"

"Yes!" Twilight said, excitedly. She would finally have a chance to find her home.

. . .

Chmone and his friend, Zeck, were discussing what to do and where to go now that they had escaped from Terram when the conversation topic turned to Twilight.

"She is definitely of a unique species. I wonder if "Equestria" has more of her kind. What did she call herself again?" Zeck wondered.

"I think she called herself a "yonp," it was something equine," Chmone responded. "And I agree, Twilight seems to have a lot of strange abilities, I would love to see all that she, and her kind, can do."

"Me too, but I feel that we have more pressing matters than research."

"Yes, yes. But what if we stopped at her planet, and maybe picked up some more yonps? We could gain an edge over the Sectanium with an army of them, especially if they were all like Twilight." Chmone suggested.

Zeck paused for a moment. "...true. However, I don't think they would be willing to fight."

"Well, we could always force them to?"

"We don't have anything they could want, except for one of their own, but it would be stupid of them to give themselves to us for just one of them back. Also, they seem too soft to even battle, and this isn't even their fight."

"Oh right. Twilight seems to have lots of power in her, but she has yet to even try to attack us." Chmone said.

"She also saved that guard," Zeck paused to remember her name, "Xul, even though she was an enemy. I think even if we did force her kind into working for us, they might not have the heart to fight."

"Fatal flaw, huh? Powerful and useful, but unable to use their power for good."

"I guess so," Zeck concurred, "And speaking of power, what do you think the Sectanium are going to do?"

The discussion drifted off the topic of Twilight and back to making plans.

. . .

Twilight and Xul had been working hard for the past hour. It was difficult since there was only one-way communication, but through a very tough game of charades, the two had worked out a system: Twilight points to something, and Xul translates and explains it to her. Xul was getting tired of it, but Twilight seemed to be full of energy. Maybe they get energy from tiring others out. Xul thought.

"The yellow line indicates the UFF, United Freedom Fighters' territory." She said when Twilight pointed at the dividing line between the Sectanium, Mandors, and UFF territory, the latter of which had the least territory out of the three. "I bet there are people on this ship who work or worked for the UFF. We're the good guys out of the three groups. Of course, there are minor groups too, but they aren't important."

Twilight then pointed to one of the galaxies in the UFF's territory, which zoomed in on the star map. Xul was used to this. She guessed that Twilight was looking fo her home, which she knew was in the UFF's territory, but not in the center area, since that was densely populated with known planets, and a Sectanium ship would have a harder time getting there. Excluding those, they were about halfway through the possible galaxies at this point. Many of which Xul knew about or heard about, so she could easily eliminate them from containing Twilight's home. However, it was Twilight who seemed to be keeping track of the galaxies. She never once repeated one, while Xul was struggling to tell if they had just looked at the Ramton galaxy, or the Rambon galaxy (they looked similar, but neither housed Twilight's solar system, which Xul knew would have very little information about it).

The cycle continued for many more galaxies and a few miscellaneous things. At one point, Captain Zeck dropped in to check on them. Xul got more nervous around him since he tried to kill her, and she didn't know what side he was on. However, Twilight didn't seem to be bothered by his presence. Zeck lingered by the door for a few minutes, watching them work.

"Temar, I don't know much about it," Xul said, for what seemed to be the 50th time. She zoomed in on the galaxy and looked at all of the tiny solar systems, represented by dots showing the color of their suns. "What color is your sun again, red?" Twilight turned to a page on a nearby book with a picture of an orangeish yellow sun. "Okay." Xul said, and used voice command on the map to make it cross out any suns that weren't orange, white, or yellow, which could easily be mistaken for one another from a planet. Now, only about half of the solar systems remained, and Xul moved them together, making them appear closer together. Then, she removed the suns and had the map shows only the ones with lifeforms on them. Twilight studied them for a few minutes, then she picked one and zoomed in on it. It looked different than the others because it only had one planet, which was in the center of it, instead of its sun. That was very strange, but not impossible.

"Equestria!" Twilight said, sounding excited, and a bit exasperated.

"That's her solar system, Contrarium?" Zeck asked, "has her planet been named yet?" Xul tapped on the planet showed on the screen and watched as information about it showed up.

"it's called Equus, sir." Xul said, in psyspeak so that Twilight would have some idea of what they were talking about.

"Em esucse," Twilight said, directing their attention over to her. She pointed at the green planet in the solar system.

"Equestria," she said, then she pointed to herself with her hoof, and back to the planet.

"That's your home, we know." Xul said.

"I believe she wants for us to take her there, can't blame her." Zeck put in. "Ask her that."

"Do you want us to take you to your home?" Xul asked. She was getting excited and motivated to work now, thinking that they would now have a set goal in mind. She thought that going there would be fun, as she hasn't been to a new planet in forever, and they might be able to create diplomatic relationships.

"Sey," Said Twilight, she looked happier, or more excited, than before.

"Tell her that once the translator is built, we can discuss taking her home, but for now we will continue to travel away from Terram to ensure that we haven't been followed," Zeck said, and Xul repeated it to Twilight in psyspeak. Twilight looked anxious to get going, but she seemed to contain her disappointment that they weren't going to go right away.

"Xul," Zeck said, "I am going to go now, but I want to speak with you once you and Twilight are done here, okay?"

"Yes, sir," Xul said, and she turned back to Twilight once Captain Zeck had left the room. Twilight had started looking around the room again.

. . .

Well, this stinks! Trine thought. A Warrior had just arrived, and he felt a tingle in the back of his mind as they attempted to break in. Luckily, they were on the other side of the large building, and likely on the surface floor, while he was in the sub-basement. This gave Trine a little time to prepare in case the Warrior decided to take over him. He didn't have many bad thoughts, but he knew that he wasn't loyal to the Sectanium. He was only there because it was the easiest way to get a high paying job. This meant that for the next few minutes, he repeated things to himself.

I'm very loyal to the Sectanium. They are amazing. The Sectanium are the superior race. Freedom leads to suffering.

Eventually, the Warrior's pull became stronger, but they weren't interested in Trine. Instead, a nearby guard seized up, which was a side effect of being mind-controlled. Trine had never been himself, but he was taught about what to do and what would happen. He knew that a person or creature could still think and see what they were doing, but they were less aware of it, almost in a dream-like state. It was also very hard to fight off, but still possible if you were experienced enough in it. Being controlled wasn't painful unless the person controlling you threw you off a cliff or something that would cause physical pain. However, it did sometimes leave you with a headache.

The mind-controlled guard started rigidly walking towards the exit. Trine was tempted to follow them but feared that the Warrior would find out.

. . .

Ash had very little time to prepare for it. The Warrior arrived very close to her, and almost immediately took hold of her body. Ash first tried to fight because she became confused and scared, but after realizing what was happening, she let go and became controlled. However, Ash was still very annoyed at this and felt that the Warrior should have given her a warning before mind-controlling her, but she wouldn't dare go and tell them this, so she shoved it to the back of her mind with what little control she still had.

Ash felt her muscles tighten up, then relax a little as the Warrior took complete control of her. She felt thoughts in her mind surface and dissipate as the Warrior saw them.

Ash watched, like a person in the passenger's seat of a ship, as she rigidly walked out the door. Then, she walked until she reached a room that she had never been to before. It was one of the meeting rooms usually used by the managers and high ranking staff, low ranking workers like her were seldom allowed in. There, she saw the Warrior. It was a male Sectanium dressed in the usual business clothes of a high ranking person. Ash expected him to be wearing spikes or something else that screamed "I'm dangerous", but he looked almost normal. The only thing different about him was that his third eye was more developed, and was glowing yellow while his normal eyes were glazed over. He also had a small silver pin on his side shoulder with the picture of an eye on it, the symbol of the Warriors.

The Warrior stood there for several more minutes, and from the corner of her eye, Ash saw more mind-controlled creatures walk in. Ash took notice of several guards that she had seen before, including other staff members. A few high-ranking Sectanium and Mandors walked in freely and stood next to the Warrior as he worked to bring everyone in. A Warrior can move when they are mind controlling people, but it can be hard for them to do both at the same time, and it usually weakens the link between the Warrior and the controlled creature. Eventually, aliens stopped coming into the room, and Ash saw herself and the others, of which there were about 20, move out the door.

The group walked to a medium-sized spaceship, and once all of them were on, they froze up again. By being frozen, the Warrior could move more easily, so Ash saw him and two other Sectanium walk up onto the ship. There, a few of the soldiers started moving again, this time into the pilot room. The Warrior then looked the rest of them over a few times, before releasing his hold.

"Partner up with another creature of you same species and gender, and find a bedroom to stay in. Stay there until further instructions are given." He said in psyspeak. Ash felt familiar anxiety creep in. She hated situations like theses when she had to partner up with a person she didn't know. It reminded her of school.

The guards and staff started mingling around each other, and Ash joined in. While they were partnering up, the spaceship took off, and Ash watched at the planet she had spent the last few years on, fade into the distance.

Author's Note

I'm sorry that this took so long to write! I had a bit of "writer's block."

Chapter XI - Growth of Knowledge

For the rest of the day until dinnertime, Twilight and Xul spent their time in the observatory, mostly researching Equus as best as they could. Twilight would point to things and then Xul would translate and explain what they were and what they meant.

"The lines show territories of the different groups, do you understand?" Xul said when Twilight pointed at the different lines separating the UFF, Mandor, and Sectanium territories. Twilight nodded, then she zoomed the map in on her planet, marked with a bright green dot. Twilight had taught Xul how to say "read" in her language, so she could ask her to read things.

"Read," she said.

"Equus. It has the conditions for life to form, but no one has visited the planet since before the founding of the Sectanium. The planet is unique because it is at the center of its solar system, and has a smaller sun and even smaller moon revolving around it. Many highly reflective asteroids surround it. Little research has been done to figure out why this has happened." Xul turned back to Twilight when she was done reading.

"...How?" Twilight asked, using one of the words Xul knew.

"How what? How is your planet at the center?"

"Yes," Twilight replied.

"It doesn't say how, but from your planet, things would look the same as they do from any other planet, such as Earth, where I'm from. The reflective steroids would mimic extra stars, and since your sun and moon are very close to the planet, they would look the same. However, It is strange that such complex lifeforms managed to survive when the sun is much smaller than normal."

"Wait," Twilight said. She wanted to ask about what stars normally are, and if their leaders, or whoever they put in charge of moving the sun, would have to move their planet instead, which seemed much harder to do. What kind of magic are these creatures capable of? she wondered.

Twilight couldn't vocalize exactly what she wanted to say, so she tried to point to the sun revolving around the picture of her solar system, but Xul must have thought that she was pointing to the stars.

"As I've said, your stars are just like ours, only some of them will be much brighter, because of the asteroids. Some of them may even form constellations because of their location, you know what a constellation is, correct?" Xul asked.

"Yes,"

"Okay, good. You might share some constellations with Earth, but only those facing in the right direction, do you know of the Ursa Major?" Xul asked, as she pulled up a picture of a group of stars. "Oh, but the star on the right wouldn't be visible from your sport, and this one would be farther to the left"

Ursa what?! Twilight thought. What does she mean?! Do they have Ursa's too? That'd be strange! That constellation doesn't even look like it, but if they have Ursa's on...on Earth, then I guess they do look like stars.

"Uh, are you okay, Twilight? Are you following me with this?" Xul asked, and Twilight nodded. She decided that she would have to ask Xul or another creature about the constellations after the translator is ready.

. . .

"The closest UFF military port would be that one," Chmone said, pointing to a planet on the map. It was located on the edge of UFF territory, but just far enough inside to not be a battlefield...yet. "Although, one of the aliens assigned for engine repair and upkeep said that we needed more fuel soon, so we will need to make a stop at one of those fuel stations run by Mandors. We should get Xul and some of the other imprisoned Mandors to pretend to be on their side, assuming that they are actually on our side, I haven't asked them aside from Xul. Even so, Xul might just turn us over, she said she was on our side but she might just be a Hunter, Peacemaker, or part of some other small group.

"That could work," Zeck replied. "But we will need to make a compartment to hide in so that if the Mandors decide to search the ship, they don't find us. I bet the Sectanium have ordered them to double down on security now that they've lost an extremely powerful tool."

"I agree. We should alert the UFF military port that we are coming so they will know if something goes wrong." Chmone turned to address an alien working on the translator, the alien was an Anta, who was of Chmone's race, but he had a different skin color. "You. Get ready for us to send a message to MPort 35."

"Yes, sir," The alien replied, jumping to another computer. "Ready. Three, two, one, recording."

"This is Captain Zeck Stone and Co-pilot Chmone..." Zeck trailed off, he didn't know Chmone's last name.

"F," Chmone said.

"And co-pilot Chmone F. speaking. We have just escaped Terram and have brought with us many other previously captured aliens, including one that you may take interest in. This alien, Twilight, as she calls herself, is very powerful, and I believe that she and her kind could help us a lot if we allied with her people. We wish to meet with the owner of your military port, but our stolen ship is low on fuel, so we are going to make a stop at one of the nearby Mandor-run stations first. I believe that the security code was F-ANT, but all of us have been imprisoned for a while, so we do not know if it has changed. Thank you," Zeck then nodded at the alien running the computer, who then sent it to the port.

"Now we wait," Chmone said.

. . .

An hour later, a reply came in.

"Thank you for letting us know of your whereabouts, and we are glad that you have all safely escaped Terram. We will prepare for your arrival. We have heard of your escape from one of our spies, who has also noticed that a Sectanian ship has been spotted heading in your direction, and it appears to have come from Terram. We believe that it may be following so, you will want to hurry along, as it is only a few lightyears behind you, and is traveling at a high speed."

Well darn. Zeck thought when the message was over. Now we'll run out of fuel even faster. I wonder if I could get Twilight to teleport us there? No, she probably isn't that powerful, if she had even a fraction of that level of power we'd likely be overtaken by her already.

While Zeck pondered different options to be more fuel-efficient, an alien came up from behind him.

"The translator is ready, sir,"

Chapter XII - Translator

"Twilight! Are you awake?" Xul called. Luckily, Twilight was already awake, or else Xul's psyspeak would have only appeared in her dream. No nightmares tonight though, luckily.

"Yes," she said.

"You're going to meet with Zeck as soon as possible today, so hurry up and get ready, please," Xul replied.

I wonder what this is about. Maybe I'm going home? Twilight thought.

"Yes." She rushed over to the small desk in the room and used a mirror she took from one of the guards to brush her mane. She didn't have a brush, so she had to use her magic, which didn't do as good of a job.

When Twilight was ready, she went out to meet Xul, who escorted her to a conference room. There, she saw Zeck, Chmone, and another creature sitting at the table. The other creature was tinkering with a strange object, and he seemed to be frustrated with it.

"I'll meet you back in the observatory when you're done," Xul said to Twilight. Then, she walked out.

. . .

The room was silent for a moment. Zeck and Chmone couldn't communicate with Twilight yet, so they had to wait for the alien to finish putting the translator together.

Zeck held up a finger to Twilight to tell her to wait, but he was unsure what that gesture meant in her culture, or if it was even a thing, since, well, Twilight didn't have fingers. Luckily, Twilight didn't seem to be offended or concerned about it, and she just sat down at one of the chairs around the table. Only her head and neck were visible to Zeck, and it made her look like a child.

"Sir, the translator is ready," the alien said, putting the headset down on the table. "I should warn you, some glitches haven't been completely ironed out, and some sentences and words may not translate properly."

"Dootsrednu," Zeck said, before turning off the translator. "I mean, understood," and the alien left the room. Then, Zeck turned the translator back on and faced the slightly surprised Twilight. "Hello, Twilight. As you can see, the translator has been finished, and we're working to create more so we can better communicate with your kind. Ponies, you called them?"

"That's nice so of you!" Zeck heard a robotic-sounding version of Twilight's voice say.

"Uh yes," Zeck replied. That's one way to put it. "Anyway, have you enjoyed your time here? I am sorry that you have been brought so far away from home." Zeck put his arms on the table and linked his fingers together.

"Well, Terram wasn't the most nicest places to go to, but this ship hasn't been so bad."

"Good, good. Now, since we have a better way of communicating, I believe that we owe you an explanation. I'm assuming you have some questions?" Zeck asked.

"Oh, yes! Many questions! Xul told me some things, but I'd really like to know; who are the UFF, Sectanium, and Mandors? Xul said she was but of the UFF, but she didn't explain what is that. And how do your planets revolve around your sun? Do your rulers or whoever is in charge of that have to move your planet? Oh! And how come none of you seem to have magic? I mean, the Sectanium used some, but I guess I can't exactly ask one of them, and Xul never told me..." Twilight rambled on.

So Xul is part of the UFF then...did she betray the Sectanium? And why did she trust Twilight with that information? Zeck wondered.

"Well, the UFF are the good aliens. We fight for freedom and work against the evil Sectanium and Mandors. They despise everyone and everything. Our goal is to defeat the Sectanium and Mandors. We also work towards peace and justice, and we make sure to be very kind to all of the planets we...occupy. Currently, the evil Sectanium have started a war, so the good UFF was formed to fight back against the brainwashing evils that the Sectanium stand for,"

Twilight was quiet for a moment as she processed things.

"You're... in a war? Are you okay all?"

Well, that's a strange reaction.

"Well, it's a war, and as long as the evil Sectanium exist we won't be okay. However, the Sectanium are much more powerful than us, and we could use some help."

"Are you saying that you want my help?" Twilight asked.

"Yes, though you don't need to decide now, and I doubt that just one of your kind would be able to do much. If more of you-"

"Of course I'll help my friends! Oh wait, I'll need to go over this with my friends and citizens first, I can't just go off fighting in a war, who would take over?!" Twilight paused, and suddenly looked very worried, her mouth opened slightly as she stared off. "Oh no! I'm not in Equestria, who is ruling there while I'm gone?! Is Starlight too busy with the school, and my friends all have other obligations! Wait, wait wait wait. Luna visited me... she and Celestia must have taken over again. And I'll have to tell Luna about this too..." Twilight trailed off, mumbling to herself.

Ruling? Is she...

"Calm down, Twilight. What's this about someone ruling?" and while you're at it, what did you mean by "Luna visited you"?

"Oh, right," Twilight said, smacking her head. "Sorry, I probably should've told you sooner. I'm actually the...the ruler of my homeland, Equestria. That and I'm also the Princess of Friendship."

Oh, crap crap crap crap. How come none of us thought that she might be important! I hope what I said was enough to make her not want to hurt us, we definitely couldn't survive fighting a war on two sides! I swear Chmone should've listened when I ordered him to put Twilight in the nicer bedroom. Zeck worried. He'd seen what Twilight could do, and having an army of Twilights fighting against them would not be fun.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, we didn't realize. If we did we would have made sure your stay here was more pleasant."

"It's okay, this is much better than Terram," Twilight said, but she didn't sound very enthusiastic.

"Thank you. Now, I'm not sure if the last part translated correctly. What did you say that you were the princess of?" Zeck asked.

"I'm the Princess of Friendship."

"Is that a country?"

"No? Surely you have heard of friendship?" Twilight asked she tilted her head.

"You're the princess of...friendship, then?"

"Yes."

But how? Zeck wondered though he didn't ask for fear of offending Twilight.

"I believe I understand then." Zeck paused, "You said that you would be willing to help us, then?"

"Yes! Well, maybe. I need to get home first! I'm sure Equestria is fine though...probably. There's always some evil creature trying to take over, what if they try while I'm gone? My friends might need my help! I'll also need to discuss this with them too, of course, and with everypony else. I'll let Luna know first though if I can find her tonight, that is. I wish I could promise that Equestria and the other nations would help, but I'm not sure if everypony would be willing to."

"Of course," Zeck said, before getting an idea. "What form of government do you run by?"

"Oh, well we have a few different types. Mostly branches of monarchies. Though I think Thorax is making the Changling Kingdom become more of a democracy, and the Griffons don't really have rulers..." Twilight trailed off, looking off at a wall.

"Your planet is not fully united? What prevents this?" Zeck asked, forgetting his idea.

"Nothing, really. I don't see a reason to unite." Twilight shrugged.

That's strange. Zeck thought.

"What about power? Gaining land? Or what about diplomatic relations? Wouldn't you want to get rid of those countries who pose a threat?"

"Why would we want any of those? Equestria has as much land as we need, and we're friends with most of the other nations." Twilight said, taken aback.

"So...all of your nations get along? How many are there?" Zeck put his hands on the table, intrigued.

"Over 10, but I don't know the exact number. I'd have to look at a map. And yes, aside from a select few, we all get along." Twilight said.

"That's impressive," Zeck said, then he mumbled "Especially for a monarchy."

"What did you say?" Twilight asked.

"Nothing, but I mean to ask, how long have those relationships lasted?"

"Well, Equestria has been a bit isolated for a while, but we still kept decent relationships with the other countries. More recently, we have communicated more with the other countries and made friends with them. And of course, some kingdoms have had recent leadership changes. Oh, and the Crystal Empire only came back a little while ago.

"Crystal Empire? Do you mean it was only just founded?"

"No, I mean that the Crystal Empire only just came back from, uh, well I don't know where it was. I think it was in a limbo-like place for 1000 years, long story." Twilight said, waving it off.

"Your kind can do that?" Zeck asked, he was surprised, and a bit concerned, Twilight looked so harmless, but if her kind could make a whole empire disappear... Well, he didn't want to anger Twilight.

"King Sombra could, he was a previous ruler of the Crystal Empire, but he had to turn to dark magic to do it. I'm not sure if I or any other alicorn could do that, even if we combined our strength. We've never tried anything like it."

"Dark magic? Alicorns?" Zeck repeated, blinking. "Is that translating correctly?"

"Yes, haven't you heard of dark magic? There's some infused in the potions that the... the Sectanium used to make us forget things. And alicorns are me. We are part Earth Pony," Twilight lifted a hoof, "part Unicorn," she tapped her horn, "and part Pegasus," she spread her wings out.

"Uh-huh," Zeck nodded, but he was completely lost, it gave him a headache just thinking about it. "...We will head to your planet soon then since you mentioned earlier that there were internal threats with you being gone. Once we get there we can discuss the war further, but please try not to discuss anything from your planet with me. It is very confusing, but you can talk to Xul about it if you wish."

"Alright, but there's one more thing you should know," Twilight said, hesitantly.

"What?"

"Well, I might be able to talk with Luna, who is likely co-ruling with her sister in my absence. If I can reach her, is there anything you would like me to tell her?'

"How..." Zeck started. No, do not question this. "I can't think of anything you'd need to tell her, but I suggest letting her know what is going on here and about the war," Zeck said, sounding rather tired.

"Okay, may I go now?" Twilight asked, sensing Zeck's mood.

"Yes, yes. Go find Xul."

Author's Note

I don't like this chapter as much as the other ones, but I did manage to get a lot of exposition and information shared between Twilight and Zeck. This chapter didn't have much else going on in it, but I'm planning on making the next chapter have a bit more action. :D

Chapter XIII - Finding Twilight

Luna exited the dream realm. Just as she figured, the sun was rising. She thought about telling Celestia the good news first thing, but she decided that she had worked enough already, and deserved a good sleep.

. . .

"Sister, wake up!"

"What is it?" Luna groaned, getting out of bed and putting her crown on.

"You were supposed to report first thing, remember? Did you find Twilight last night?" Celestia asked.

"I only took a nap, sister."

"Luna, it's almost sundown. I understand if you had a rough night, but you know we are all worried. Rainbow Dash almost came in here to wake you up when I told her you were sleeping."

Luna looked out the window and saw that the sun was indeed setting.

"My apologies, but I did have a very tiring night, and I have news to share. Can you summon Twilight's friends? I think they will want to hear this," she said.

"Yes, yes I will," Celestia said, taking out a scroll and quill.

"I am going to raise the moon now, meet me in the throne room when Twilight's friends have arrived," Luna said, stepping out onto the balcony. Celestia nodded and left the room.

. . .

"Ah, there you are, sister!" Celestia called when Luna walked in. "I believe you have some news for us?" She asked.

Luna looked at Twilight's friends. Most of them looked worried, except for Pinkie Pie, who was smiling.

"Yes, I do," Luna began. She recapped how she had found Twilight very far away, and how she had seemed very upset, and mentioned being captured.

"How awful!" Rarity exclaimed when Luna was finished.

"What I don't get is how these creatures managed to even get ta Twilight!" Applejack said.

"She might not have been in the castle when she was kidnapped," Spike put in.

"Luna," Celestia addressed, "Can you try to find Twilight again tonight? Perhaps you can figure out where she is and how we can help her."

"I will attempt to, but I should warn you, finding her the first time was very lucky," Luna said,

"Um, it's okay if you need to rest though. I understand that a lot of work and stress can harm the quality of your work," Fluttershy said.

"Thank you, but I have already rested enough. I am going to go look for Twilight now, goodbye friends." Luna turned and left the room.

. . .

That night, Luna did not find Twilight.

Where could she be? She wondered.

Luna went to the same spot as last time, but Twilight was not there. She tried sending out an echoing spell, but she didn't find anything. Luna worried that something may have happened to Twilight, but she reasoned that maybe Twilight just left the area. Yes, she left the area, with speed beyond that of a speeding pegasus.

. . .

After a disappointing conversation with Celestia, Luna went back in search of Twilight. Again, she went back to the same spot and sent out an echoing spell. This time, she found Twilight! Twilight had moved very far from the spot Luna first found her at, but she was still there. Luna followed the echo, and arrived at Twilight's dream, surrounded by many other dimly-glowing orbs.

. . .

Twilight was floating around in space on a rock. She stood there peacefully and watched the stars above her. She saw lines appear in the sky, each of different hues. Twilight remembered how Xul had told her that the lines represented the different territories, but she couldn't remember which ones corresponded to which group.

While she stared at the stars, Twilight wondered if the Mandors were evil, or if they were more like the Changling servants. Zeck had told her that the Sectanium were evil and that the UFF were good, but then what about the Mandors? Neither Xul nor Zeck had told her much about them, other than that they were friends with the Sectanium.

Maybe we could become friends with them too. Twilight thought. Then, she turned and looked around and behind her. There, she saw Equestria or at least something that looked like it. There was a green and blue planet surrounded by a rocky moon and a glowing sun. When she stared at the moon, she saw it glow a bit brighter. Then, it turned blue for a flash, and somepony walked out from it.

Who's that? Twilight wondered, and she steered her rock towards the pony, who also appeared to be approaching her.

Soon, Twilight could make out the figure; it was Luna!

"Twilight?" Luna said.

"Pr- Luna! What are you doing- oh, I'm dreaming, aren't I?" Twilight said as Luna dropped down onto the rock.

"Yes. I'm sorry I didn't contact you last night, I couldn't find you," Luna said.

"Oh, it's fine! I probably wasn't even sleeping at the time." Twilight paused. "So, I have some things to tell you."

"Go ahead."

Twilight explained how she was on a spaceship with many different creatures, and how two of them, Zeck and Xul, had told her about a war going on. Twilight also made sure to tell Luna that she was going to be coming home soon, and that when she got back they could discuss this new information, and what to do about the war.

"I'm impressed that you have made friends so quickly. Although I shouldn't be surprised. You are the Princess of Friendship, after all," Luna said.

"That was another thing. Zeck seemed very confused when I told him that. He said he knew what friendship was, of course, but I'm not sure he believed that in Equestria I'm the Princess of it."

"Perhaps you will just have to show him. You did say that you noticed tension between the creatures on the ship." Luna said with a wink.

"Maybe..." Twilight said.

"Now, you said that you would be coming back to Equestria soon, correct?" Luna asked.

"Yes,"

"How soon do you think that will be? And will your companions be coming with you?"

"I'm not sure how much time until I get back, but I do think that Zeck and the others will come with me. Zeck, Xul, and Chmone, the co-captain, seemed very interested in Equestria. Zeck especially."

"What do you think the reason they are interested in us is?" Luna asked.

"I was thinking that it was for friendship, and for gaining diplomatic relationships, of course. At least, I'm interested in their world for those reasons," Twilight said.

"Could they be using you?"

"What?"

"You said that these creatures appear to not possess as much magic as our kind and that they told you they are not doing very well against the... the creatures they are fighting. Could the be seeing you as a too? Something they can use to win their war?"

"I... I guess I never thought of that, but they haven't treated me poorly," Twilight said, looking back at the stars.

"Before Nightmare Moon, Celestia and I would often get calls for help from other nations. After we helped them, they would go back into isolation. It seemed that they only contacted us if they needed our help."

"Any you think that Zeck could be doing that?" Twilight asked.

"I do not know, but it is a possibility. Please keep that in mind, and do not tell them that you are new at ruling. I do not wish to join a war and fight for creatures whose only wish is to use our power for themselves," Luna said.

"I will," Twilight promised, feeling a bit more nervous than before.

"Good, is there anything else you need to tell me?"

"Not today, but can you try to visit again? And please tell the others that I miss them."

"Of course. We have all been worried for you, Twilight. I'm sure the others will be glad to hear that you are doing okay," Luna said, before retreating back into the moon.

"Bye!" Twilight called, as Luna flashed out of the dream. Twilight lingered for a little while longer, looking up at the stars and territory lines. Could they really just be using me?

Chapter XIV - Actor Xul

"Remember, Xul. One step out of line and he'll shoot you. Got it?" Zeck asked, pointing to another crew member holding a gun. The spaceship was arriving at a Mandor-run fueling station, which meant that a majority of the creatures on the ship couldn't be seen. Xul was going to pretend to be the captain since she was one of the few Sectanium on the ship, and was also very experienced with their culture. The other Sectanium and Mandor creatures were going to pretend to be workers or guards.

"I understand," Xul said. Zeck nodded firmly and then walked back to the cargo section of the ship. A lead box was waiting for Twilight, Zeck, and Chmone to hide in. They were the highest targets for the Sectanium, and Xul knew how important Twilight was to the UFF.

. . .

Okay. Just act like nothing's wrong. Pretend you're on another spy mission. You have authority here. Xul thought. She paced around as the ship landed at the station. The fuel station was a hexagonal building with large extruding pathways coming out of the center where ships could land. At the moment, Xul's ship was the only one there.

"C'mon." A Sectanium posing as a guard said. Xul wondered why a Sectanium would've been imprisoned by their own kind, but she didn't much care.

Xul walked out of the ship and into another sealed area, where two Mandor officers were waiting for them. The Mandors saw that Xul and the guard were both Sectaniums, so they did a sideways head nod to show respect.

"Hello, ma'am. We need your name, ship name, and your reason for travel." One said. No time for small talk then. Xul thought.

"Uh, I am Captain... Ayah Zadzisai," Xul began. Sorry Mom and Dad, but no one is going to recognize that name anyway. "My ship is the... M & S... Titanic," Sure, why not. "And we're here because we are transporting criminals to the nearby mining facility.

"May we inspect your ship?" The other Mandor asked. Though it was more of an order than a request.

Xul and the guard who came with her backed up and separated so the Mandors could get through. One of the guards gave her a funny look as they passed. Xul figured it was because she was acting too respectfully like she was of a lower rank than them. Do something! She thought.

"Hurry it up." She said, impatiently. Xul hoped it would make her sound more like a real and authoritarian Sectanium captain.

When the Mandors walked through each of the rooms to inspect them, Xul saw each of the creatures in there tense up, and start acting like they were actually doing work. One of them even ran to grab a vacuum and started cleaning the floors.

While Xul found this a bit comical, she also became worried. If the Mandors noticed this and called her bluff, she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. Zeck told her to fight them and get everyone out of there once they were fueled up, but Xul didn't want to hurt anyone, especially not her own kind. She could try to run, but then she'd probably become enemies with both Zeck and the Sectanium.

"What's all of this?" A Mandor asked her once they reached the cargo room.

"It's just... Basic supplies. Food, clothes, you know."

"Why do you have a lead box? Is there a Warrior here?" The other asked, tapping the box Twilight and the others were hiding in.

"Uh..." Xul panicked. What could she say?!

"Oh, hold on ma'am. I'm getting a call," The Mandor stepped away from the box and pulled out a phone. Xul LeT oUt A bReAtH sHe DiDn'T kNoW sHe WaS hOlDiNg, thankful that she had time to think.

"Yes... No, Pleb and I are on the ship... Nah, they're clear, you can start. Another one?" The Mandor turned back to Xul.

"Are you traveling with another ship, by chance?"

"No?" Xul said, surprised. The Mandor looked slightly annoyed by this, probably because he'd have to inspect another ship right after this.

"Alright," he turned back to his phone. "Tell them we'll be with them soon... Wait, what?!" I'll be there in a minute." The Mandor put his phone away.

"You're clear. You can leave once your ship is fueled up." He nodded to the other officer and the turned and walked away. They didn't even bother to check is Xul could pay. Well then again, they're likely government-funded anyway. Xul thought. Then, she walked over to the lead box.

"We're clear. We should be leaving soon. She said. Xul didn't get a reply, so she walked back to the front of the ship to wait.

. . .

After a few calm minutes, Xul heard a commotion outside of the ship. It sounded like someone was banging on their door. That's odd. Maybe they forgot something? Xul thought. She then told one of the other "guards" to open the door to see who it was.

The doors opened, and several Secctanium guards from Terram stepped in. Oh gosh... Xul thought.

"Um... what brings you here?" Xul asked them.

"You and every other creature on this ship must come with us." One of them said in psyspeak.

"Uh... We're actually on an important mission to deliver these criminals to a mining station. So... we can't come with you." Xul said. She raised her "voice" so that everyone else could hear what was going on.

"Yeesh. Lower your voice!" Another guard said, cringing.

"Sorry. I speak very loudly."

"Anyway," A guard butted in. "Everyone on this ship is a criminal. Where is the "real" captain? They'd never let one of us be in charge."

"I am the real captain!" Xul said. One of the guards rolled her eyes at Xul who could tell that none of them believed her.

"Alright. Fine. Captain traitor, hand yourselves over to us, or we will have to take your ship by force."

"Let me think. I do not know if I should fight your or hand everyone over." Xul said. She tried to be extra loud this time. If Zeck and the others were listening, then they'd understand what was going on. I don't want to fight them, but handing us over is just stupid. Maybe everyone else here can fight instead? Xul thought.

"Who are you talking to?!" A guard accused, pointing a gun at her.

"No one! Really. I'm just thinking out loud!"

"Well, think quickly! Our boss wants us to report back soon. I'd recommend surrendering if I were you. You don't want them to be mad."

Well thanks for the tip, then. Xul thought. I guess... She looked over at the other crew members. Several of them already had their hands on their guns, and a few had moved over to where they could pilot the ship. She felt powerful here. She didn't really have power over them, that was Zeck's job, but to keep up the act, they had to take orders from her.

"Alright. I choose to fight." Xul said, trying to keep her voice from shaking a little as she grabbed her gun. Xul expected that someone on either side would immediately start firing, but there was an awkward moment of silence and pointing guns at each other that followed.

"-worse option." Xul caught a snipped of conversation. The guards were speaking to each other! One of them had accidentally raised their voice a little too much in the wrong direction.

The door opened again. Xul looked over to see who had opened it, but she couldn't tell who it was. When she looked back at the door, she saw another Sectanium standing there. He was wearing a different uniform than the rest. It looked like a typical high-ranking officer's uniform, but something about it was different.

When the Sectanium walked towards the others, Xul saw that he carried himself with great power and authority. Then, she realized what about him was different. On the side of his shoulder was a little pin with an eye on it. This Sectanium was not a Soldier, but a Warrior.

Author's Note

Hi.
Just FYI, I'm not going to be posting a new chapter next month. Also, some minor characters may be "nerfed" from the story. I accidentally added too many characters in the beginning, and I don't think I can follow them all. I won't delete their parts in previous chapters, though, and they may return playing some small parts. For example. Ash was in this scene. Can you guess what she did? ;)

Chapter XV - Fight or Flight

Bang! Bang!

"What was that?!" Twilight whispered.

"Shh!" Chmone was not using the translator, but shushing was a universal sign.

Twilight leaned her head on the wooden wall. She tried to listen. She tried to hear what was going on outside.

"Xul failed. They're fighting. If it's not over soon, we'll have to fun." Zeck said. Chmone drew out some type of knife and crouched. Waiting.

"Warrior!"

A faint yell from Xul reached the box. The lead lining muffled it, making it sound like Xul was underwater.

"Warrior?" Twilight asked, "Aren't they-"

"Tell you later," Zeck said.

Chmone cut through one of the walls with his knife. It fell to the floor with a thud, and they stepped over it as they ran out.

What's going on?! We need to help! Twilight thought, as they crept through the hallways. Zeck was leading now, and they had to stop at every corner. If there's a Warrior here, and I remember them correctly, then we need to stop hiding and go help our friends!

"Stop." Zeck put out his hand right before they turned the corner. He peered around the corner and brought his head back almost instantly. Prison guards from Terram had flooded the ship. Each was carrying a weapon of some kind. The ex-prisoners were there too, but they weren't fighting.

Zeck motioned towards the exit. Chmone looked around the corner briefly, then nodded. They both drew weapons.

Twilight watched them prepare to sprint out from the corner. She mirrored them but wasn't sure what they were going to do once they got to their destination. Should she make a shield? Open the door? What?!

Bang!

Someone shot off their weapon, and Zeck and Chmone started running, with Twilight following. As their feet pounded on the floor, guards heard and turned towards them. Chmone threw something at a group of them, who scattered and ran. Unified shouts ran throughout the room, and a loud, surprisingly unemotional voice cut through them.

"Nwodkol," It said. The lights turned off, and save for a few small electrical lights, everyone was plunged into darkness.

Twilight tried to follow the shadowy figures of Zeck and Chmone, but she bumped into someone on the way. She let out a grunt and fell backward. Then, she put up a shield as projectiles rained down on her.

From the glow of her shield, Twilight could just make out the face of the creature she bumped into.

"Xul?!" She shouted over the others. Xul stood, unmoving, even as the shield began to crack.
Bang!

More cracks appeared on the shield. Twilight had forgotten about the powerful weapons the Sectanium had. They pounded on her shield, and Twilight panicked. She forgot about Xul as she shrunk her shield down to only fit herself. Then, she rapidly expanded it and knocked everyone back, including Xul.

The guards were quick to get back on their feet, and Twilight didn't want to be around when they started shooting at her again. She spread her wings and flew up into the air. She had gotten a good leap, but forgot that the gravity was different here. Twilight felt her stomach drop as she swiftly glided downwards.

"Ungh!" Someone grunted as Twilight landed on top of them. She felt a strange vibration as she made contact, and quickly jumped off of the creature.

The shouting in the room grew louder and more chaotic. More creatures had joined in the fighting. Twilight lit her horn to see who it was. She saw that the ex-prisoners had started fighting now, but she also saw someone disappear out of the exit. Was that Chmone?

The vibration from the creature Twilight had knocked down increased enough for her to feel it even from a few feet away. He stood up, and Twilight saw he was a prison guard, but he had a small eye-shaped pin on his shoulder.

"Uh..." Twilight said. Did Xul tell her what the eye meant?

"Run!" A creature from the crowd addressed Twilight, before being shot by a guard.

Twilight took the warning and flew into the air. This time she remembered to adjust her flight for the different gravity.

The guards continued shooting at her. The light from her horn was making it all too easy for them to see her. However, the creatures couldn't fly as she could, and Twilight guessed they had never fought an airborne enemy before.

As Twilight dodged attacks, she watched the creature with the pin. He stood up and shook his head, before turning to face the crowd. Then, all of the ex-prisoners stopped moving. A few guards continued to shoot at them, before realizing what had happened. Some positioned themselves around the creature with the pin. Others continued shooting at Twilight, who had put up a large shield around herself. A few even ran after Zeck and Chmone.

Twilight's shield was shot down very quickly. Seconds before it broke, Twilight dropped to the ground and threw a spell at the creature with the pin.

Zap!

Twilight felt herself get thrown backward from the strength of her blast. Guards surrounded the creature as he fell to the ground. Did I kill him!? Twilight thought.

Bang! Something hit Twilight in the hoof. She recoiled and threw up another shield.

Blood was coming out of her hoof now, and the shield was once again beginning to crack and weaken. Twilight clenched her teeth and stared at the shadowy figures in the crowd. The ex-prisoners were moving again, but they appeared to be loosing. If nothing happened to change this, the guards could easily take over the ship.

Twilight took a risk and sent out a spell.

A sphere of light expanded out of Twilight's horn and engulfed the room. Everyone stopped moving and shouts quickly died down.

"What the hell?" A guard said.

Twilight had frozen armies before, but aliens were larger than ponies. She unfroze any creature not in uniform to save strength. Once they could move, they started to shoot at the others. Twilight gagged as the smell of blood reached her. She lost her focus and freed the guards.

Some fell to the ground, but got up again and began returning fire.

A few guards yelled something, and the guards shifted their focus. Many ran for the exit, including the hurt creature with the pin and the ones surrounding him. The rest moved slowly backward and shot at the ex-prisoners. As they were leaving, the lights turned back on and the shouts died down.

One of the guards shot at a light, which exploded in a bright flash and sent glass raining down around it. Twilight shut her eyes as some of the fragments hit her.

When the guards had all left, everyone stood in stunned silence for a moment, before hurried murmurs took over as the healthy creatures attended to the wounded. The adrenaline from during the fight started to wear off, and Twilight felt a sharp pain in her leg.

"What... did they retreat?" Someone said. Twilight turned and saw that Chmone and Zeck had returned.

"Yes. They did. And where were you?!" Twilight yelled. She wanted to run over to them, and maybe even blast them, but she knew that she shouldn't move her leg.

"Where were you?!" Zeck replied, angrily. "You could have gotten yourself killed! And then we- well. It was a terrible idea!"

"Tohs tog ehs. Kool," Chmone said, pointing at her leg. He didn't seem very concerned, but he left the conversation.

"Chmone's going to find medical supplies for that wound. Do you have any organs there?" Zeck asked. He now sounded more tired than angry.

"No."

"You're lucky that's all you got. Warriors are brutal and impossible to fight against. You're lucky to be alive. Don't disobey us next time. We can keep you safe."

Author's Note

Hi.

This took a little longer than expected. I've figured out that I'm pretty bad at fight scenes! :D Anyway, I think the end result here is at least decent.

I don't remember if I said this already, but my school has started again, so gaps between chapters might increase. I should have the next one out in about a month.

Chapter VII - New Friends

In the security room, Ash watched several higher-ups including scientists and head soldiers look through each camera feed. They were repeating the same scene over and over again.

It started with the teleport in the inspection room, which, after close inspection, they realized that it had started at the horn of the creature, which was teleported a few microseconds before the rest of it. Usually, a teleport will begin in the center, but whoever teleported this creature had poor aim or put in the wrong coordinates.

Then, the creature ended up in the mine, instead of on a spaceship or in a room that the teleport had probably come from. After a brief skirmish with the guard of the mine, the creature revealed that it had wings. This came as a surprise to everyone, including the scientists and Ash, but the set-up team confirmed that the creature did have wings. They said that they didn't feel like giving its suit wings because it was more cost-effective, and the wings were too small in comparison to its body for it to be able to do anything.

The group watched as the creature, EQ-3, flew up and glided out of the room, where it landed, adjusted itself, then took off flying in the direction of the cafeteria. However, it was teleported again before it could turn the corner, and no one has found it yet.

Ash looked over at the people watching the cameras with her. She hated that she was the only one sitting down, it made her feel like she was a lesser person than all of them. Of course, she was, being the only Mandor in a room full of high ranking Sectaniums.

"Maybe the ship miscalculated, and now it has EQ-3." Ash heard them psyspeak to each other. She couldn't speak with her mind the way that they could, but she could still understand what they were "saying" when they forgot to block out their conversations.

"What if there isn't a ship, and the teleporter is somewhere on this planet?! A scientist said,

"I say we bring in a Warrior to help us with this, they would have a much easier time tracking down the ship or whatever it is that teleported EQ-3, they can spare a few of 'em.

Oh cool, Ash thought, maybe I'll get to meet one of them.

The Warriors are, like their name suggests, warriors. However, they were a special kind of warrior, different from the soldiers and guards. Every creature who knew about them, even their enemies, like the UFF, respected and feared them.

Ash heard the Sectaniums become quiet, and she guessed that they were now talking amongst themselves. No use being useless here then, she thought, and quietly excused herself to go back to the guards' quarters.

. . .

Twilight panted as she looked around from under her bed. It was the only semi-safe place she could think of, after having teleported outside, before panicking and running back in.

With momentary peace, Twilight took a moment to collect her thoughts.

Did I just create enemies?! What were they going to do?! I must not be in Equestria anymore! What should I do?! How do I get home?! What if by creating enemies with those creatures I just doomed Equestria, and it's all my fault?!

No, calm yourself down, Twilight, you're freaking yourself out. Think Twilight, what would Celestia do? Probably talk to these creatures, right?

Twilight considered this as an option, but she figured that they didn't speak Ponish, and even if they did, they likely didn't see her as a friend.

Speaking of friends, where is everypony else? Oh wait, I was probably the only one taken, right? Because I would be the biggest target since I'm the ruler.../i]

"Return to bed." The announcement came on, and Twilight was interrupted from her increasing panic. From under the bed, she shifted her position so that she was able to look at the door.

Twilight lay there for a little while, then she saw the creatures come in. They walked in a line then dispersed and went to their respective beds. One of them went to the bed above Twilight. His weight caused the bed to sink, and Twilight began to feel a little claustrophobic. However, she forced herself to stay there.

Soon, Twilight heard the creature above her start breathing in a slow, deep rhythm. It was asleep.

Okay, so now what? She thought.

Twilight didn't have a plan for what to do now that she wasn't in danger. Her end goal was to get back to Equestria and to hopefully make some friends on the way, being the Princess of Friendship and all. However, she didn't see what the next step was...for a moment.

These creatures aren't my enemies yet. They're just under a spell, and I know how to break that spell.

A smile came across Twilight's face. Her eyes squinted with determination as a plan formed in her mind. As quietly as possible, she began making her way to each of the beds to perform her spells.

. . .

Zeck suddenly felt very sick. He shot up and out of bed, clutching his stomach, hitting his head on the bed above him as he did so. He bent over and threw up.

Groaning, Zeck looked around. He saw many creatures, a few of which he recognized as humans like him once his mind started to clear. Others he knew were aliens that he studied before, but never got to meet.

What in the Milky Way? Where am I? Where's my crew?!

As his mind cleared, he began to remember things. His name was Captain Zeck, and his ship was captured by the Sectanium. He remembered being taken prisoner by them and being given the collar. After that, most of it was a blur.

While Zeck got his bearings, he noticed that the other creatures in the room were also freed the potion. When he looked to see who was freeing them, he saw a glowing purple horse, with a pair of wings and a horn!

The small horse made an announcement once it had freed all of the creatures in the room, but only about half the room heard, and most of them ignored it as they were too busy coming to their senses, talking to one another, and looking around.

"Sinop kaeps ereh eruta erc yna seod?"

Zeck couldn't understand what the creature said, but it appeared to be concerned and a little bit panicked, but its voice was steady and loud. He watched the horse repeat its message a few times, before becoming angry that no one was listening or paying any attention to it. Zeck assumed that it might yell, walk away, or even put them back under the potion if it could, but apparently, this creature was a bit more annoyed, and powerful, than that.

"Yeh!" It yelled, and its horn glowed a bright magenta color and sent out a ball of light. Zeck felt a strange force overcome him, like being controlled by a Warrior, and he felt his muscles tighten. He saw that the talking had quieted down significantly, and all of the creatures were frozen in place, except for their eyes and mouths.

The small purple horse seemed to struggle for a few seconds before its horn stopped glowing, and everyone was able to move again. No one said anything.

. . .

Twilight felt out-of-breath after performing a freeze spell. It took her a lot more effort than she expected. There were only about 15 creatures in the room, but most of them were the size of two ponies, making it about as difficult as freezing all of the Hooffields and McColts.

She looked around at them all and saw that all eyes were on her. It was what she had wanted, but now she had to find a way to communicate with them.

Twilight looked over at one of the empty beds. The pillows were left out on the edge of the mattress. Twilight walked over to the pillows, making sure that she still had the attention of the creatures, who were now all looking at her like she was about to explode.

Taking the pillow with her levitation, which caused a few gasps from the crowd, Twilight transfigured the pillow into a series of black metal bars connected at the top and bottom. It looked like a jail cell. Twilight looked at the creatures and pointed to the object with her hoof. Then she pointed to the floor, back at the bars, and repeated the motion several times. She was hoping that the creatures would understand what she was trying to say. A few of the wide-eyed creatures gave small nods, and some repeated her movement. Twilight hoped that this meant that they understood.

Then, Twilight turned the bars into grass and flowers, and created a stick pony version of herself with her magic, and dropped it to the floor. The stick pony stood on the floor for a few seconds, then Twilight moved it to the grass and flowers, trying to get her new point across. She repeated that motion a few times and saw more creatures nod and point, they understood.

. . .

Zeck wasn't 100% sure what the horse wanted, but it seemed like it wanted freedom. A very hard thing to come by in this place. He walked over to the horse, which caused the group to stare at him. Zeck noticed that this horse could perform transfiguration and levitation, something that he had only heard about in crazy scientific concepts and theories. In normal circumstances, Zeck would have liked to ask the horse about its abilities, but instead, he pointed to the grass and flower that it had made, then made a writing motion with his hands.

The horse looked very confused for a moment, and Zeck felt his heart sink; it didn't understand him. However, the horse seemed to recognize what he wanted, and it transformed the grass and flower into a piece of paper and a pen. Zeck was surprised that this creature knew what a pen and paper were, but he was very thankful that it did.

Zeck began drawing out stick figures, then the horse and drew them in a box. Then, he sketches a spaceship that looked more like a bunch of triangles and squares. He drew an arrow from the creatures in the box to the ship, and then he looked at the horse to see if it was understanding him. Surprisingly, it was nodding and seemed to follow him.

"Epacse." it said, before putting its hoof to its chin. Then it nodded again and motioned at the exit. Zeck nodded, before addressing the group, hoping that some of them spoke English, as it was the most common language.

"Fellow captives," he began, "I believe that this creature, which some of you may know as a horse, wants us to escape. Seeing how that appears to be the best option for us, I am going to help it, will any of you join me?" For a moment, nobody moved, and Zeck felt worried. We can't escape without a crew. However, the humans in the crowd came up, saying things such as "sure," and "yes sir."

Following the humans were other aliens who Zeck recognized as his ally species, and others who he guessed spoke English. After the humans came the rest of the crowd, except for about four creatures, who had seemed to want to stay behind.

When they had gathered near each other, the horse took another pillow and changed it into a large sheet of paper. It levitated it over (which made more gasps from the crowd), and gave it to Zeck, seeming to say your move now.

With the paper in his hand, Zeck began to draw out an escape plan.

Author's Note

In Ash's POV section, I mentioned something called psyspeak. In The Nautilus Protocol (which is what my story is inspired by), there was something very similar, and I believe that it was called psyspeak as well. I do not mean to copy the name, but I liked the concept, and mindtalk didn't sound as good to me, so I used psyspeak instead.