A Shadow of Myself

Those who had to go scouting had stripped their saddlebags and put them in a corner of the shop before going to do their jobs. The remaining six of them were left to explore the shop, even the two nocturnal ponies, who didn't want to sleep until they had helped survey this much.

Cadence had cast a spell that created a dim light to see by, and now they explored. The toy shop was precisely that, a toy shop. However, as they walked through the shop, Andrea took note of the things missing that you might expect from a typical toy shop.

The stuffed animals were the most prominent toy, filling two full aisles and a wall, and they were almost exclusively intuits– both the bear and non-bear. The only stuffed animals that deviated from this were stuffed stars with faces. Andrea had heard Empathy mention something called star buddies before that were kept as pets; she didn't think the term was so literal. Her eyes scanned over the toys, and she grit her teeth as she recognized some of the insignias on the bellies from the attackers on the manner, including the one she fought. Her teeth relaxed as she focused on the non-bear intuits, and her ears sagged as she watched Empathy pick up a tiny version of himself and gaze at it. It was definitely him, or at least one of his ancestors. He then set it aside and picked up a purple hippo, and hugged it tightly as he started to cry. He made some additional noises, but Andrea was unsure if those were just choked-up grief or something he was trying to say.

She looked at Phobia for a translation.

Phobia gave the elephant a sympathetic look. "That is a stuffed version of Heavyheart, his sister and mate-to-be. He is expressing how much he misses her."

"His sister is his intended mate? That's disgusting," Josie said, looking ill.

Phobia gave a brief flap of her wings. "I have read my mother's report. Intuits don't reproduce in the same manner we do, and family concepts and terms like mother, father, sister, and brother are not perfect fits to our understanding of the terms, no matter how you view those concepts. Even their concept of gender is one that the majority of humans and ponies wouldn't understand. You could also say incest is what is normal among intuits unless something has gone wrong, but that implies the same manner of reproduction we understand is occurring and our concept of sexual activity is occurring, which isn't true. The intuit are magic golems, living constructs created by magic to serve, and each new generation is a perfect copy of the last. They don't even have the capability of genetic variation between generations. Don't be judgemental just because the aliens' biological methods are exactly that, alien."

Josie looked at the elephant. "So, he is like a robot, not alive?"

"He is alive," Charlotte growled defensively.

Phobia nodded. "While their original origins might have been artificial, they are living things as alive as you or me and just as sentient. Capable of free thought and the same range of emotion. He thinks, feels, eats, sleeps, remembers, dreams, hopes, and reproduces; he is alive."

"Perhaps that's why the bears turned on the humans. They were sick of being treated like servants and objects," Andrea suggested.

"Baseless speculation," Phobia replied. "A theory to tuck away, but not one that we have any evidence for. Best not to invest in any theory until we have found evidence to support it. It can make us not recognize truths."

"Phobia is right. Trying to imagine why is fine, but we can't jump to conclusions," Cadence said as she examined a toy train held suspended in her magic. "These humans seem so similar to us in terms of the things they made. I wonder why."

"I wondered the same thing," Charlotte said. She pushed a tricycle slightly. "Did you notice there's no two-wheeled bikes? I know bikes are practically non-existent in Equestria, but shouldn't a human society have two-wheelers?"

"Maybe their balance isn't as good?" Josie suggested. "They aren't like Earth's humans. They are shorter and wider and bigger chested. They might not balance on bikes as well."

"How do you know that?" Andrea asked. "I doubt you could tell that from the skeletons without a thorough examination."

"They have photos," Josie answered. "Don't see any here, but I saw some when exploring around town. They stand maybe four-and-a-half to five-feet high for the males and perhaps four to four-and-a-half for the females. Not super short, but still shorter on average. Notice how much lower all these shelves are? The top shelves are easily reachable for ponies or these human children."

Andrea hadn't noticed until something had been said. She looked at the nearest top shelf and squinted. Something was packaged up there, just out of sight for her stature as a pony. She reached up with a hoof and knocked the item down on the floor. It came down with a crash, making her flatten her ears, and everyone else jump.

"Sorry," she apologized. It had been a small box package, and it had broken open and spilled its contents when it had hit the floor. One of its contents rolled next to her hooves. She touched it, rolling it back and forth. "Batteries. I doubt they are any good after this long, but they had access to electricity."

Josie pointed a wing up at the ceiling. "Already guessed that based on the electric lights this place had. Didn't see any power lines outside, but they were powering the buildings. Maybe the lines are underground?"

"Perhaps, or they have a different way of generating and transferring power," Cadence replied.

Charlotte picked up one of the intuit toys, a raccoon. "This might sound weird, but I don't see any differentiation between a girls and boys section."

"We don't have many gendered toys at home anymore, so that's not too surprising," Andrea replied. "A toy is a toy. We didn't care about that stuff growing up. We turned out fine."

Charlotte stared at her.

Andrea cleared her throat. "Well…how we turned out didn't have anything to do with our toys."

Her sister sighed and put the stuffed animal down. "That's true; plus, Andri and Amicus grew up in normal circumstances with the same toys and turned out normal. No comment on my other self."

"Hey, if we want to talk about childhood trauma, Sunset Shimmer experimented on me regularly when I was a kid, and I got told it was only nightmares, so I've got you both beat. You want to know who really had a traumatic childhood? Those dead kids outside, murdered by the bears they loved," Josie snapped. "Can the boo-hoos about your childhood. I get it, it was rough, and if we were chilling around somewhere, I'd want to help you with it, but we're on a mission, so buck up."

"I think you may be overtired and stressed, Josie," Cadence said softly. "I don't think there is anything else significant to learn in this shop. How about you and Phobia get some rest? You've done a good job helping us on our first day. The three of us will guard you while we await the others' return."

Josie flapped her wings briefly, but nodded before heading over to the corner with their stuff.

"We should have brought some short-range radios to keep in contact with everyone," Andrea lamented. "Seems obvious to me."

Cadence shook her head. "There are two problems with that. One, we don't know who else might be listening, and two, Bursa is on our team and one of the peculiarities of changeling magic is that nearby changelings disrupt radio transmission. It is actually one of the ways we are able to detect her getting too close to the portal."

"I was not aware of that," Phobia said with some surprise. Something a Dreamwarden hadn't known? That was rare.

Cadence nodded. "You wouldn't have heard. It was a more recent discovery, and we haven't shared that information with Earth's governments yet. We still hope to get changelings eligible to go to Earth eventually, and telling them the changelings can mess with radio waves could cause more uproar than them being able to mimic others. We're still looking for a way to suppress the effect." She looked at Andrea. "Anyway, aside from when we send presumably fast scout out further, everyone should be within a short distance of one another at all times. We can manage without."

"Are you trying to avoid going going to sleep?" Charlotte asked Phobia.

"She is," Josie said as she cuddled up with her saddlebag and pulled a stuffed cthulhu toy out of it. Everyone looked at her. "What? He is an essential supply! Don't stare at Mister Cuddles!"

"Mister Cuddles?" Charlotte asked, looking like she wanted to laugh.

Empathy walked over to Josie hugged her, including the stuffed animal. Josie seemed to resist for a few seconds, then pouted and accepted the hug. Empathy mumbled something and everyone had to turn to Phobia for an explanation.

"He says it looks like an elephant, a really ugly elephant," Phobia translated.

Andrea snorted. "If I knew it was okay, I would have brought Kneesaa."

"That's her stuffed ewok," Charlotte explained.

Phobia walked over to the corner and fished into her saddlebag, pulling out a large plush spider.

"I thought you had arachnophobia," Andrea commented as she looked at the blue smiling spider.

Phobia adjusted the spider, making it clear she intended to use it as a pillow. "My granddaughter bought one for me and another for my mother when we each left Earth. She found out about our shared fear and said these would help us face our fears. In light of what surrounds us outside, I think there is no better time for putting this silly fear into perspective, but I think I appreciate the gesture more than my mother."

The retired warden sighed as she laid her head on the plush spider. "And now it's time for me to face a different fear, another foreign dream realm."

The warden closed her eyes and began to lightly snore.

"Wish I could fall asleep at will like that," Charlotte said wistfully.

Josie laid her own head down. "Takes a good bit of practice." She closed her eyes and then began to quietly snore as well.

Andrea rolled her eyes at the two sleeping mares then looked at Cadence. "So…we're just going to wait around for the others to get back?"

The princess nodded. "Once they are back we will discuss what they found and the three of us might go out and look around ourselves, just to get a change of scenery while the others watch our friends. We may spend the night, just so we are all well rested before we head out. Hopefully, Sapphire and Bursa will discover a good heading for us."

The door opened, and Luster and Scootaloo entered. Luster was carrying something in her magic.

"We found something you're going to want to see," Scootaloo announced as the two headed toward the corner.

They all came together and looked at the object as Luster set it down. It was glaringly obvious what it was, it was a laser gun that had been knocked off of something bigger, that wasn't the most surprising thing about it. Andrea and her sisters were both staring at the logo on it.

"It can't be…" Charlotte gasped.

"So much for care bears being our primary antagonists," Andrea muttered. "We really need to have a talk with that toy company back home."

"Guess we know where those laser blasts came from, and who did this," Charlotte whispered.

The three Equestrians looked at them in confusion. "You know something about what this is?" Luster asked. It wasn't surprising that Equestrians wouldn't know, but any American would recognize that insignia immediately.

No Heart seemed to have much more formidable allies than the bears. It was a Decepticon logo. There were freaking transformers out there somewhere. Things just got a lot more dangerous.