"First contact is a common theme in science fiction about the first meeting between humans and extraterrestrial life, or of any sentient species' first encounter with another one"
-Wikipedia, "First contact (science fiction)"

Buzzing was all she could hear.

A narrowed pair of green eyes was all she could see.

And the cotton suit over her fur was all she could feel.

“Give it up, Dash,” came Applejack’s drawl, “ya can’t hope ta beat me when farm animals are involved.”

Rainbow Dash scoffed. “‘Give up?’ Have you met me?” After a moment, she added, “And calling bees ‘farm animals’ is a bit weird.”

“Well they farm honey, don’t they?”

There was a sharp whistle, and suddenly the bees vanished from both Applejack’s and Rainbow’s forms, retreating back into the elderly beekeeper’s hives. “Time’s up, you two,” he called before turning to properly tend to his insects.

Rainbow groaned. “Dang it! We’ve tied!”

“Ah wish Pinkie were here,” Applejack said with a sigh. “Maybe she’da been able ta call it.”

Rainbow narrowed her eyes. “We just need another competition! The bees didn’t work out to end the best of five so…” Her eyes drifted towards the border of the Everfree, which was relatively close to the beekeeper’s property. “I know! Let’s go explore the Castle of the Two Sisters!”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Ya know the Forest gets mighty dangerous, even during the day, right Dash?”

Rainbow grinned at her. “Well, if you’re too chicken to explore some ancient ruins, that makes me the winner of our bravery contest!”

Applejack snorted. “Ah didn’t say Ah wasn’t game. Ah was just makin’ sure you were.”

The pair grinned at each other for a moment before they took off towards the forest with no hesitation.

“A-are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Please, darling, we’ve been through the Everfree multiple times before! I dare say that the chances of us running into anything untoward are vanishingly unlikely!”

Fluttershy glanced behind them before continuing walking, just to make sure that Rarity hadn't jinxed them with that comment. “But, um, before it was all six of us when we’d go into the Everfree.”

Rarity glanced back. “What of that time you entered alone to save my sister and her friends?”

Fluttershy shivered at the memory. Yes, she may have gotten that cockatrice to back down, but it was still one of the scariest things she had ever done. “That was st-still really dangerous.”

Rarity slowed down to give Fluttershy a reassuring pat. Or at least, Fluttershy thought her friend was trying to be reassuring. It didn’t accomplish much—it was no more reassuring than the knowledge that Angel was in her mane—but Rarity continued on afterward regardless. “Well then, we shall simply have to reach the castle posthaste! I have wanted to give those tapestries a proper look for a year, now!”

The Everfree’s canopy rustled in a light breeze as Twilight Sparkle trekked through the forest. Looking up, she squinted at the sky that she could see through the leaves, noting that there would likely be a storm in the afternoon. Hopefully, she and Zecora could find the humans (or at the very least any information about them that may or may not be at the Castle) before the rain set in.

Returning her focus to the proximity charm she had up, Twilight glanced at their surroundings. It was standard for the Everfree, really. Most of the truly dangerous predators of the forest were nocturnal, though timber wolves were known to show up during the day occasionally. She felt that it was better safe than sorry, hence the charm set up to alert her the moment something else stepped into range.

Spike was on her back, keeping a second set of eyes out behind them as the three of them moved between the trees. Or at least, he was supposed to. From the conversation he was having with Zecora, Twilight could tell that he was more interested in the reason for them being out here than keeping watch.

“So what’s with the potions you’re bringing, then?” he asked.

“The humans I saw ran through a patch of poison joke,” Zecora said, shaking a vial that Twilight assumed held the antidote for that particularly annoying plant. Personally, Twilight thought that, much like the plundervines, poison joke was an invention of Discord that he simply forgot to mention. “I hope to prevent them from panicking, if they are as susceptible to it as us pony folk.”

Twilight winced a bit, remembering that whole debacle. The wince, really, was both from her remembering the poison joke’s effect on her and the lingering shame from how she and her friends had treated Zecora. But before she could open her mouth to apologize for that (probably unnecessarily, given that the transgression was nearly a year ago and Zecora had forgiven them even then, but Twilight was a princess now; she had to set a good example), Spike spoke.

“Oh hey, we’re almost there!”

Following where her brother was pointing, Twilight could see the top of the Castle of the Two Sisters’ tallest spires peeking over the trees. Soon enough, they had exerted the woods and were in the large clearing containing the castle and the chasm surrounding it. The bridge, thankfully, was still up, and stable enough that they could cross without issue and Twilight didn’t have to try (and likely fail) to fly them across.

Twilight took a deep breath before entering the Castle. She wasn’t sure she’d find the humans that they were looking for here, but she figured that it was likely. The Everfree didn’t have much in the way of shelter other than it and some scattered caves, so an intelligent creature would probably seek it out to set up camp.

As Twilight lit her horn to push the large stone doors open, none of the three noticed a pair of black eyes narrow at them from above.

Stepping inside, Twilight didn’t see anything amiss. At least, not until they reached the Castle’s throne room, which they had decided to look at before going to the library. That room did have some differences from how Twilight remembered it.

The first thing she noticed was that one of the tapestries above the twin thrones was gone. Specifically, the tapestry with an artistic display of the Moon, hanging above Luna’s ancient throne (which was the only one of the two still intact; Celestia’s had been destroyed when Nightmare Moon refused to make way for the day), had vanished.

“I wonder if they moved it,” Twilight muttered, mostly to herself. It seemed like the most likely explanation for the tapestry disappearing, though admittedly Twilight wasn’t sure why the humans would have messed with the Castle’s art.

“It would seem that the humans did,” Zecora chipped in, her voice alerting Twilight to where the zebra had moved. “This is not particularly well-hid.”

She was standing a bit of a ways away, in one of the throne room’s corners, standing over a pile of scrap. Upon closer inspection, Twilight’s eyes widened when she realized just what the scrap was: the remains of the missing tapestry. A bit put out that the humans would ruin such an ancient piece of art, she stalked towards it.

As she did, Spike sniffed. “Wow, that’s a bit of a strong smell.”

Confused, Twilight craned her neck to look at him. “What smell?”

Spike blinked. “You can’t smell it? It’s the same as how most metal smells to me. I mean, it’s not as strong as the metal jugs over there,” he gestured over his shoulder at a series of metal pots that, properly looking at them, Twilight could tell were made out of the decorative armor around the castle, “but it’s still pretty strong.”

“Dragons are known to have enhanced smell, for more than just what is dragged out of the mud,” Zecora spoke up. “Aside from gems and the rocks on which they dwell, dragons can also better smell metals, and thus,” she held up a ripped piece of the tapestry, which even in the dim indoor lighting of the castle, was clearly stained a rust red, “blood.”

Twilight gasped, her ears pressing back against her head. Quickling taking a piece of fabric in her telekinetic grip to more closely inspect it. Some of the pieces were knotted, and it was clear that they had been cut free from whatever they’d been wrapped around. There were wooden splinters in a few of them, and with how many of them were stained red…

“They were using it to dress their wounds,” Twilight concluded. Eyes wide, she looked at Zecora and Spike. “We need to find them. They’re lucky a manticore hasn’t wandered in here with this much blood around; trying to dress your wounds in the Everfree is just asking to get eaten.”

“Infection is also possible in such an environment,” Zecora added. “Even likely, and sicknesses from the Everfree can be particularly violent.”

Spike gulped audibly, and Twilight steeled her expression. “Alright, let’s head to the library, then.”

Spike made a confused sound as they left the throne room. “If we’re looking for them, why there?”

“It’s one of the biggest rooms in the castle,” Twilight said, “which might make it convenient. And I know if I found myself on another world, I’d be very curious as to why their books were appearing in my native language.”

“You believe these humans to be extraterrestrial?” Zecora asked. “I would think, before making such a claim, that proper proof would be essential.”

Twilight shook her head. “I mentioned the Mirror portal to you yesterday, right?” At Zecora’s nod, she continued, even as they pushed the door open to the library. She was too engrossed in the conversation to notice the other two freeze in shock. “The world across the Mirror had different laws of physics from Equestria. I don’t think humans are just extraterrestrial; I think they’re extrauniversal. They couldn’t even use magic, not even passively like how most species on Equus do.”

“Well then,” a new voice spoke up, and no Twilight froze in shock as well, “that would certainly explain a few things.”

Slowly, Twilight turned around, facing the creature she had been looking for. His voice and build indicated that he was male, at least going by what Twilight had seen across the Mirror. He was wearing the remains of a tapestry, with the fabric wrapped around him to hide the fact that he must have lost his shirt at some point. He had two-tone hair—white on his right and red on his left—and seemed to be around the same height as the humans Twilight had encountered before (at least assuming the Spike’s dog form was around the same height as dogs in Equestria), indicating that he was likely young. His eyes matched his hair, heterochromia splitting the colors between them. His right eye was a stone gray, while his left was turquoise. Most of Twilight’s attention, though, settled around his left eye, on the absolutely massive burn scar covering most of the left side of his face.

The three natives to Equus stared at the human and he stared back for a few moments as no one spoke. Eventually, the human spoke up with a small frown. “I suppose I should introduce myself, given that whatever lets us read these books also lets us communicate. My name is Todoroki Shoto,” he said, “and if we’ve truly stumbled into another universe, that makes things much more complicated.”

Ida Tenya looked up in surprise as Asui quickly entered the room and shut the door behind her. Putting down the book he had grabbed from the castle’s library (and wasn’t that just fascinating how this world had books in Japanese; at this point they all suspected something supernatural was going on), he spoke. “Asui-”

Asui croaked threateningly.

“Tsu,” Tenya quickly corrected, “what is wrong?”

“We have company, kero,” she said. “I already told Ochako, but Bakugo’s outside and I don’t know where Todoroki, Shoji, or Tokoyami got off to.”

Tenya frowned. “I do know that Todoroki has been spending more time in the library as of late, and I hope that he is able to handle himself if the natives are hostile.”

In truth, Tenya wished he could help with a first contact situation, but whatever was going on with [Engine] kept him from doing so.

“I don’t think they are, kero,” Tsu offered. “I caught some of their conversation and they seemed more curious than anything, but, kero, I don’t want to take any chances.”

Tenya nodded. “A sensible position. As for the others, I do know that Shoji has taken to exploring the castle, but I have no idea where Tokoyami is.”

Fumi! Hey, hey Fumi! Look at this!

Tokoyami Fumikage sighed before deciding to just indulge his quirk. Dark Shadow would just keep bugging him about it otherwise. “What is it, Dark Shadow?”

Dark Shadow rushed through an open door, pulling Fumikage along with her. “A pipe organ!” she squealed, opting to speak aloud rather than in his thoughts for now. “We’ve always wanted to play one of these!”

Fumikage’s fingers twitched, but he resolutely turned around. True as it was that the room held a massive pipe organ and that Fumikage had had a few fantasies of being able to play such a magnificent instrument, the pipe organ that was available was probably ancient. “It is unlikely to work in the first place, Dark Shadow.”

“Aw, come on, Fumi!” Dark Shadow complained. Before he could reign her in, she shot forward and moved to press her claws to the keys. “You never know until you try!”

The talon pressed down, and a surprisingly clear chord rang out.

In Ponyville, Pinkie Pie paused her search for the new ponies for a moment as a strange feeling passed through her, drawing some strange looks from the Crusaders as she inexplicably hung upside down from their clubhouse’s ceiling. Her eyes narrowed. “Somepony’s stealing my bit,” she said.

Without any explanation, she dropped down from the ceiling and jumped out of the window, an event that the three fillies soon shrugged off as just Pinkie being Pinkie.

Outside of the Castle of the Two Sisters, Rainbow Dash and Applejack were near one of the walls to set the ground rules for their contest. “Alright,” Rainbow began, “we’ll each spend two hours inside the Castle, and we’ll keep track of how many times something startles us.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow and leaned against the wall. “An’ how do ya think we’ll do that?”

Rainbow grinned. “Points!”

“Points?” Applejack clarified.

Rainbow nodded. “Jumping is one point, running is two, screaming is three, and running and screaming is five!”

“An’ Ah take it this is golf rules?” Applejack asked. “Whoever ends with the least points wins? Ah can work with that, but,” she narrowed her eyes, “how do Ah know ya’ll be honest?”

Rainbow snorted. “And how do I know you’ll be honest.”

Applejack snorted right back. “Please, Ah can’t tell a lie ta save my life.”

Before Rainbow could properly retort to that, the wall Applejack was leaning against suddenly shifted. Rainbow herself jumped (and hated that fact) as Applejack let out a shriek as the entire wall spun around and she outright vanished.

“AJ?” Rainbow called. She knocked on the wall a few times before deciding that that was a fruitless endeavor and she resolved to look around inside for her friend. Nary a moment later, she’d shot off into the air and towards the front of the Castle with a rainbow contrail behind her.

Fluttershy winced at every stray sound that emanated from the Castle, and when that organ chord sounded out she outright yelped. At this point, Angel had grabbed one of her forelegs with a paw and was practically dragging her behind Rarity, who seemed too engrossed in the Castle’s décor to pay much attention to Fluttershy nearly having three heart attacks in succession.

For a moment, Fluttershy’s thoughts paused. When had her inner monologue gotten so sarcastic? Huh, maybe she was spending a bit too much time around Discord.

Ah, never mind that, though, it seemed that Rarity did, in fact, notice Fluttershy’s extreme distress. She glanced back at her in the hallway before the throne room. “Fluttershy, darling, an old castle like this is going to have some odd sounds from time to time!” she rationalized. It had to be rationalization. That was the only explanation Fluttershy could think of for Rarity’s behavior that didn’t involve her friend suddenly becoming even more unaware of others’ feelings. “There’s no need to be so dramatic-AIEEEEEEEEE!”

Fluttershy glanced inside the throne room to see whatever had Rarity in such a conniption. Her unicorn friend had dashed towards the two thrones (or really one throne and the crumbled remains of a second) and was peering up at a blank wall. “One of the tapestries is GONE!” Rarity dramatically (Fluttershy let herself feel some vindication, though she didn’t express it outwardly) declared.

“Um,” Fluttershy piped up, “weren’t you planning on taking it and seeing if it could be renovated? Maybe somepony had the same idea?”

Rarity let out a sniffle. “I…suppose that may be possible. But I shudder to think our trek will have been useless. Perhaps I should examine the other as well and-”

She cut herself off, her eyes having landed on a corner. Her face quickly warped from a distressed frown to a confused frown to an angry frown. She stalked towards the fabric in the corner, almost inequinely snarling. “How dare somepony desecrate such beauty!”

Fluttershy nervously followed after her, but she looked down in confusion when Angel refused to get more than a few meters from it. He shook his head, chittering a bit, and Fluttershy’s eyes widened in realization. “Uh, Rarity?”

“Not only did they tear it, but look at this!” she shouted, not even acknowledging Fluttershy’s voice. Light blue magic wrapped around a piece of fabric as Rarity shoved it towards her friend’s face. “RUST RED! They stained it and had the GALL to do so in such a garish color!”

“Rarity, that’s-”

“I simply must find the pony that defiled this fabric and…” Rarity huffed, stomping a hoof as she contemplated whatever punishment she’d give the poor soul who did this, “give them a very stern talking to!”

Fluttershy shuddered. She’d been on the receiving end of Rarity’s rants about fashion before, back when she’d gone to apologize for how she acted during the debacle with their Grand Galloping Gala dresses. It had been quite informative, sure, and Fluttershy had learned that her previous understanding of fashion from when she’d tried to nitpick her dress was rather surface-level, but it wasn’t something she’d wish upon anypony.

Except maybe Sombra. He’d probably deserve it.

Well, there was another example of Fluttershy’s inner monologue being influenced by her time spent around Discord. She didn’t think she’d ever been so vindictive before meeting him, though she still wouldn’t trade their friendship for the world.

Wait, where was she?

Ah, right, Rarity was running off into the hallways, following a trail of bloody fabric, chasing after somepony to give them a piece of her mind. Somepony that, if Fluttershy was reading the state of the fabric properly, was probably wounded.

Her eyes shot wide open and she frantically looked towards where Rarity had run off to. Quickly grabbing Angel from where he was examining a bunch of beaten-up looking pots filled with water, Fluttershy ran as fast as she could after her. “Rarity!” she called. “Those are bloodstains!”

She wasn’t sure if she had been heard. Between Rarity’s state of mind and Fluttershy’s naturally quiet voice, she doubted even the loudest she could make herself shout would get through to the unicorn. Panting, she turned a corner just in time to see Rarity jump into a room, and Fluttershy tried desperately to push herself even harder.

She pivoted to run into the room, seeing the commotion that Rarity’s hasty decision had caused. She seemed to be mid-step towards a figure lying down on a stone slab (with another, larger piece of tapestry cushioning the creature) but was swiftly stopped by a second creature that pretty much lunged for Rarity. Before Fluttershy could even react, they had made contact with her, and that’s when things got a bit strange.

Rarity started floating.

In an instant, Rarity had been thrown, and she let out a bit of a pained yelp when she hit the far wall. With the unicorn still trying to figure out which way was up, the creature’s attention turned to Fluttershy, brown eyes boring into blue.

The pegasus had dealt with dangerous creatures before, though, and this was displaying all the signs of an animal backed into a corner. She tried to make herself as nonthreatening as possible, even reaching up to prevent Angel from popping out of her mane to defend her. After a few terrifying moments, the creature seemed to relax a bit.

The silence was still tense, though, and Fluttershy used it to take in everything that was going on. The creature that had attacked (though in their mind, it was probably retaliation) Rarity was bipedal, and similar in structure to an ape. Despite the lack of fur, they were still clearly mammalian, with a mop of brown hair atop their head. The hair looked ragged, as did the creature’s clothes; it was clear that they had been camped out here in the Castle for at least a couple of days. Given the creature’s chest area, Fluttershy presumed that they were likely female (was she lactating or did her species simply have permanent breasts, Fluttershy idly wondered), though she certainly wasn’t going to be so crass as to say that aloud, especially given that the creatures were clearly intelligent enough to both create clothing and dress wounds.

Speaking of those wounds, Fluttershy’s attention then turned to the creature that was lying down. She couldn’t see much, given the angle, but she could tell that their arms were wrapped in the same fabric that made up the tapestries—that was what had probably gotten Rarity so worked up. There was a pile of clean tapestry pieces at their bedside, and Fluttershy figured that they probably brought the used ones out to the pile in the throne room to properly dispose of them later. What she could see of the creature’s arms, though, looked bad. Their left arm had a nasty burn scar and the sleeve of their shirt was even a bit charred, on top of the arm seeming broken. Their right arm, or at least what little of it Fluttershy could properly see, was also broken, ugly purple bruising blemishing the visible skin. They were asleep, at least, their eyes shut under the bush of green hair, but the sweat on their forehead and their freckled face being flushed seemed to indicate a fever.

Eventually, the female creature sighed. “Alright, I’m gonna assume that whatever magic translation thing is going on lets us understand each other, so uh,” she paused, looking back at Rarity but making sure to keep an eye on Fluttershy, “what the hell was that?”

The unicorn in question was now slowly rotating in place, a bit away from the wall that she had bounced off of. She winced. “I…may have overreacted a tad to the Castle’s tapestries being trifled with.”

The creature raised an eyebrow. “A tad,” she repeated.

Rarity sighed. “Yes, and I do apologize. Could you release whatever magic you used on me now? I promise not to attack you or your friend and I’m not really skilled enough at autolevitation to properly move right now.”

The creature crossed her arms, splaying the digits at the ends of them in such a way that only four were in contact with her at a time. Mentally, Fluttershy tried to recall what the creatures on Equus that had them called them—those were called fingers, right? The creature’s fingers had visible pads at the tips of them; perhaps they were how she activated whatever magic she used on Rarity?

“Yeah, I’m not gonna trust you with that right now,” the creature said, and Rarity sputtered a bit.

Meekly, Fluttershy did eventually speak up. “Um, maybe we’ve all gotten off on the wrong hoof?” She shivered a bit as the creature’s attention turned to her, but forced herself through it. For Rarity’s sake, if nothing else. “M-my name is Fluttershy, and,” she poked at her mane to let Angel know that it was okay to show himself, though she guessed that he was likely glaring at the creature, “this is Angel Bunny.”

The creature did seem to relax further, but she was definitely still on guard. “Uraraka Ochako,” she offered.

Pointedly, Fluttershy looked at her floating friend.

The unicorn sighed. “Rarity, darling. May I ask what your friend’s name is as well?” Her face softening, she added, “And, if it isn’t too much, what happened?”

Uraraka sighed and sat down on a slab of her own. Fluttershy wasn’t sure why this room had so many stone slabs but that probably wasn’t the most important thing to focus on at the moment. “That’s Midoriya Izuku. He…both of his arms were broken when we got trapped here, and we think that he got an infection here.”

“Trapped?” Rarity asked.

Uraraka stiffened, looking at her hands (they were called hands, right? Fluttershy thought she’d heard of minotaurs calling that appendage a hand) as if they had blood on them. “We…still aren’t sure how it happened, exactly,” Uraraka said, guardedly, “but this isn’t our home planet.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened, and she locked surprised eyes with Rarity. Even with all the things that they’d dealt with since gaining the Elements of Harmony, aliens were not on the list of things she expected.

Then Rarity continued rotating away and the eye contact broke, but the thought still got across.

Still, Fluttershy shook her head to clear it. Regardless of them being aliens, one of them was still in danger. “Could we…” she started softly, trying to figure out how best to phrase this. She didn’t want to scare them off, but Uraraka was still very much on guard and definitely adverse to any of them getting closer. Of course, Fluttershy didn’t exactly blame her; if one of her friends had multiple broken bones and an infection, she’d be wary of some unknown creature too (especially if another of that creature had previously attacked them). “Maybe we could help? Ponyville has a hospital and we could show you the way out of the Everfree Forest.”

Uraraka looked to be warring with herself between continuing to be cautious and wanting to accept the help. When she looked towards Midoriya, though, her gaze softened and she seemed to settle on one option. “That…that’s probably a good idea.”

She didn’t say it, but Fluttershy had dealt with very sick animals enough to pick up on the fact that it was likely their only option. Midoriya already looked half dead and if he didn’t get medical attention soon he probably would die. “Would you mind if I took a look at him before we moved him?” she asked as Angel hopped out of her mane to snicker at Rarity a bit more. “And, um, could you undo the magic you used on Rarity?”

Uraraka seemed confused for a moment before she realized something. “Oh, right, my quirk. I guess it might look like magic in this world…” She muttered that last part, before quickly bringing her hands together, matching each digit with its counterpart on the opposite hand. “Release!”

Rarity’s gravity returned immediately and she fell to the ground in a bit of a heap with the second pained yelp of the day.

Angel just snickered louder.

Ignoring that for the time being, Fluttershy trotted up to Midoriya, with Uraraka’s burning gaze still centered on her, and carefully undid the wrappings on his right hand. Up close it was even worse than how she had first assumed; not only was there recent purple bruising all up and down his arm, but his hand in particular looked like it had been put through the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy Six Thousand. And on top of that, Fluttershy could see some old scarring as well, likely signs of earlier surgeries.

The worst of it, though, was staring her right in the face. And right in the nose, as well.

“When was the last time you redid the wrappings?” Fluttershy asked.

Uraraka shuddered. “A few hours ago, I think? It’s…hard to keep track of time right now.”

Fluttershy gulped. “So this is recent, then.”

Uraraka must have seen the concern written on her face, because her own face took on a fearful expression. “How bad is it?”

Fluttershy met her eyes and immediately regretted it, but it was better for news like this to be shared rather than hidden. “Gangrene.”

Uraraka seemed to go through a lot of expressions rather quickly, but she settled on some combination of desperation and determination. Without warning, she got up and made for the door. “Alright, I need to grab two of the others here for an emergency amputation, then.”

She made it about three steps into the hallway before something very fast and very orange slammed into her legs, sending both her and the newcomer tumbling to the ground. When a familiar Stetson landed a bit before Fluttershy, though, she knew who had run into Uraraka.

“Applejack?”

The farmpony seemed confused for only a moment before she locked onto the fact that two of her friends were here. “Flutters, Rares, ya gotta help me! Ah can’t find Dash and there’s some six-armed monster in the halls!”

Uraraka let out a pained groan a bit away before speaking as well. “Oh, you found Shoji.”

Rarity looked at her as Angel hopped back onto Fluttershy’s head. “How many of you are there?”

“There’s eight of us,” Uraraka answered, getting up and dusting herself off. “We’ve gotta find Todoroki and Tokoyami to save Deku, so let’s go.”

Mentally, Fluttershy filed away the nickname Deku as a way that Midoriya was referred to before following along as Uraraka began to run through the hall. She could hear a bit of Applejack and Rarity’s conversation as the latter filled the former in on what was going on (“Aliens, really?” “Yes, darling, aliens.”) but most of her attention was on helping to make sure that one of their extraterrestrial visitors didn’t die of sepsis.

It turned out that they wouldn’t need to do much searching, at least, because by the time they reached the Castle’s foyer, it was in complete pandemonium.

The biggest, most eye-catching thing was the giant shadow monster writhing around in the center, causing enough of a ruckus that it was a wonder they hadn’t heard it earlier. Fluttershy, of course, froze on the spot as soon as she saw it, backing up to be behind Applejack as she rushed into the room too.

Darting around the shadow monster was a familiar rainbow contrail, though, so at least that meant that Applejack had found Rainbow again.

There were two more creatures of Uraraka’s species as well, one significantly taller than her with broad shoulders who was waving a flaming stick around and another likely female member of her species, who was using an exceptionally long tongue to pull the tall one away from the shadow monster’s strikes every so often.

Uraraka swore under her breath (and that certainly wasn’t something that Fluttershy could fault her for; growing up around Zephyr had somewhat desensitized her to swearing and the situation certainly called for it) before looking at the three ponies. “Dark Shadow’s out of control!”

Applejack looked at her somewhat incredulously. “Ya know this thing?”

Uraraka nodded. “That’s Tokoyami! Or, well, Tokoyami’s quirk. It’s complicated and he or Deku would explain it best but right now I need to ask if any of you can produce light.”

Rarity looked a bit confused but lit her horn anyway, a simple light spell at the ready.

She needn’t have bothered, though, because as soon as she did a massive column of flame, directed towards but not directly at Dark Shadow, spilled out of one of the side hallways. Immediately, the shadow retreated, revealing another creature. Fluttershy wasn’t quite sure if this was another member of Uraraka’s species or something else, given that he had the head of a crow but the rest of his body seemed to match their species (and she really needed to ask what they called themselves at some point).

Following the flame, though, were four figures. Another of the aliens, who looked to be the source of the fire, Zecora, Spike, and, blessedly, Twilight. Before she could run up to her friend and ask her to save an alien’s life, though, they were interrupted again by the doors outright exploding.

“Alright, what the heck is going on in here?”

Fluttershy’s gaze snapped to the destroyed doors, which had been blown to smithereens by another, irate alien. This one had spiky, blond hair and red eyes that made Fluttershy shiver in fear just from them glancing over her. In only a moment, the angry alien apparently decided that Twilight was the biggest threat, because their hands exploded and they launched through the air towards her.

Her horn flared and the alien was wrapped up in purple magic and suspended midair before he made it even halfway across the room.

Uraraka let out some kind of surprised choking noise at that, but Fluttershy was, at this point, mostly focused on Twilight. She and Rarity both ran towards the alicorn, with Uraraka close behind. “Twilight!” Rarity shouted. “One of them is injured!”

“Badly,” Fluttershy added quietly. “His wounds are gangrenous.”

The alien that was with Twilight seemed surprised by that last part, and Twilight’s own eyes widened, too. The alien glanced around. “Do we need to amputate?”

Twilight shook her head. “I can teleport him directly to Ponyville General, so there’s no need for a field amputation.” She looked at Rarity before releasing the alien she had suspended, who let out a flurry of creative insults upon being dropped. “Take me to him.”

Rarity nodded resolutely, and the two of them sped off back towards Midoriya.

As soon as they did, Uraraka seemed to finally let the tension she was holding in break, and she fell to her knees in what Fluttershy assumed was relief with tears in her eyes.

The rest of them seemed to slump back as well, a whole load of tension that they were carrying relieved all at once. Rainbow landed next to the rest of the ponies with a bit of a confused expression. “What’s going on?”

The blond alien crossed their arms and growled. “Yeah, I’d like to know that too.”

The alien with heterochromia and two-tone hair let out a breathy, humorless chuckle. “It’s worse than we thought, Bakugo,” they said. “We’re not just on another planet. We’re in another universe.”

Uraraka, who at this point had collapsed entirely to the ground, let out a groan that Fluttershy couldn’t help but compare to her brother’s “done with this shit” groans. His words, not hers.

“Hold the hay up!” Rainbow shouted. “You’re aliens?”

“Before we continue this line of conversation, perhaps there is something else we should take into consideration,” Zecora cut in, directing everpony’s (everyone’s?) attention to her. “Midoriya has broken bones, so to heal him Ponyville General will need an example. Could someone get there fast enough to provide a sample?”

Rainbow immediately started hovering, but looked unsure as she scanned the aliens. She was still full of bluster, but did seem to lose some as she actually thought about it. “I…don’t think I could carry one of you all the way there.”

The alien that had been with Twilight (oh how Fluttershy wished that they had all exchanged names, but introductions could wait for now) sat up straight. “I have an idea. Could you still lead us out of the forest?”

Rainbow preened. “Absolutely! You’re looking at the finest Wonderbolts reserve that Ponyville has!”

“Uraraka,” said the alien, “could you use your quirk on Ida?”

She pushed herself to her feet. “Yeah, sure thing, Todoroki. I take it you’ll carry him and he’ll push you?”

Todoroki nodded, and the alien that must have been Ida approached them as well. “I am…unsure of how this will work, given the state of my engines.”

“You’ll just be facing backwards,” Todoroki said. “I can still hold onto you like that. And perhaps this hospital can help you as well.”

Zecora seemed to suddenly remember something on that note. “Ah, you and your angry compatriot have walked through a patch of poison joke,” she said, grabbing a vial from her saddlebags. “The cure to that is to add this to some water and take a long soak.”

Bakugo seemed particularly pleased that there was a cure, but no one wanted to bring up why that may be, so Fluttershy wasn’t about to assume things.

A few minutes later, everyone had properly introduced themselves, Rarity had rejoined the group as Twilight had teleported away with Midoriya, Ida was securely on Todoroki’s back, with the latter’s arms splayed outward a bit to loop through the former’s. The pair were just outside of the destroyed doors, with Rainbow doing a few warm up loops in front of them. “So, you think you can keep up?”

Todoroki grinned and stomped his right foot on the ground, and Fluttershy could see Applejack’s jaw drop as a thin sheen of ice spread across the ground, with a thicker ice bridge across the chasm separating the Castle of the Two Sisters from the rest of the Everfree. At the same time, the strange protrusions in Ida’s legs began to glow from heat, and Rainbow grinned at them.

The three were off like a rocket moments later.

“Alright, then,” Applejack spoke up after everyone was silent for a few seconds. “Are we gonna head back ta Ponyville an’ have the aliens meet everypony?”

Rarity frowned a bit. “You know, I cannot help but be surprised that Pinkie hasn’t shown up here, given that the rest of us did.”

“She did cancel on me and Dash’s competition,” Applejack said. “Maybe somethin’s keepin’ her in town?”

Either these new ponies were supremely clever at hiding from her, or her Pinkie Sense was wrong. And Pinkie Pie’s Pinkie Sense was never wrong! But she had already searched all of Ponyville! The new ponies weren’t in any buildings, or under the bridges, or even hiding in any of the trees!

She did find a neat new hiding spot for eye patches in case of eye patch-related emergencies, so there was at least one positive to her search.

Still, Pinkie tapped her chin in thought as she considered where the new ponies may be. Perhaps she had been thinking too small! Ponyville’s borders technically encompassed the entire Everfree, even if nopony ever exercised their jurisdiction there. Maybe the new ponies were in there, hanging out with Zecora!

Before she could set out, though, an all-new wave of shudders passed through her.

Pinkie didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but she could tell that there was a doozy coming.

Applejack shrugged. “Whatever it is, she ain’t here.”

Uraraka sighed from where she’d once again sat down, leaning back against a wall. She seemed half asleep, but she was still awake enough to respond. “We’ll go when everyone gets here.”

Fluttershy looked around. There were three ponies, one zebra, one dragon, and four humans (Uraraka, Bakugo, Tokoyami, and Asui, or Tsu as she preferred to be called, if Fluttershy was remembering their names right) around, so they were just waiting on one.

Like the thought of him had summoned him, the final, six-armed human, Shoji, entered the Castle foyer from one of the many hallways. He looked around, noting the many exhausted beings around, and gained a confused expression. Fluttershy thought it was confused, at least; it was hard to tell from only the eyes.

“What the hell did I miss?”

Author's Note

It's off-screen, but the reason that Rainbow Dash was fighting with Dark Shadow was that she stumbled across Tokoyami while searching for Applejack, and her first instinct was the punch the shadow monster in the face. This is the mare who decided that kicking a full-sized, adult dragon in the snout was a good idea; she knows no fear.

Dark Shadow reacted negatively to that, to say the least.

Also, when I was initially writing this, I didn't expect the Fluttershy section to get nearly as long as it was, but as I was writing I realized that yeah, Fluttershy absolutely would analyze the heck out of some new creatures. She lives for that sort of thing, and I like to think that, if she hadn't been tied down to Ponyville by her animals and the Element of Kindness, she probably would have gone to school for an actual degree in biology or ecology. Plus, I just enjoy writing her; she seems like the kind of character that would let her thoughts wander a bit, especially since her social anxiety keeps her from interacting with most other ponies and especially especially since she hangs around Discord quite a bit.

It worked out, though; Applejack's and Rainbow's experiences in the Castle weren't terribly different from in Castle Mane-ia itself, so I left their actual encounters with Shoji and Tokoyami respectively off screen.

And now, finally, the introductory arc of this story is out of the way! We won't be jumping straight into how our heroes handle Equestrian culture, though; first, we'll be spending two chapters in an interlude of sorts, because up next is Chapter Seven: The World They Left Behind. And as a sneak peak, here's the first line:

To say that Midoriya Inko was distraught would be the understatement of the century.