Gorgeous Mare, Grotesque Horse

As it turned out, Phillip knew quite a bit about Odd Squad...as an outsider looking in.

He wasn't employed with them, so he only had a very basic knowledge of what went on in Headquarters, plus some bits and bobbles that he picked up from eavesdropping. This upset Twilight, because she wanted inner workings. She wouldn't settle for base knowledge.

"Is that really all you know?!" she shouted, slamming an authoritative hoof on the table.

"Y-yes! I assure you, I have shared every bit of knowledge I have about Odd Squad!" Phillip stammered. "I-If it's not enough, then I apologize, but-"

A loud and exaggerated and very tired sigh forced itself out of Twilight. It was very obvious what she had to do now. She had quite a few avenues she could take, but there was only one that stuck out in her mind.

"Phillip." She stood up. "We're going back to Odd Squad."

"Going back? But we just got here!"

"You mentioned that they had a library, right? And since you haven't exactly been helpful, then I'm going to turn to their books." With a narrowing of her eyes, she glared at Phillip. "Who is the librarian there?"

Phillip could only stammer.

"Uh, Twilight?" Rainbow slightly tilted her head. "Maaaaybe you should calm down. Take a deep breath or something."

Twilight whirled on her friend. "Calm down?" she said, her tone as cold as ice. "I just discovered a world that has been connected to Equestria this entire time, and you're telling me I need to calm down? Do you know how groundbreaking this is, Rainbow Dash? Do you want to see for yourself how groundbreaking this is?"

"Well-"

"Do you?"

"I..." Rainbow fiddled with her hooves, glancing from Phillip to Twilight to Starlight. And then, she sighed. "I guess I'll come along. Just to make sure you don't start making the locals angry." A tapping of the chin. "Though it would be nice to kick some butt..."

Starlight shot Rainbow a look of disapproval before her gaze became fixed on Twilight. "Why don't I come along too? My curiosity is piqued, and to be honest..."

"You've been to Earth before, haven't you?"

Starlight stiffened. "I...y-yeah. How did you..."

"You have a portal to Earth. It's not exactly hard to figure out." Twilight remarked with a smirk. "Maybe you know stuff about Odd Squad that I don't."

"Well, I wouldn't say that. But I'm happy to help however I can."

"So it's settled." Twilight glanced at Phillip for all of five seconds before encasing him in another magic bubble and floating him over to her side. "Come on, everypony. To the portal!"

As soon as Twilight landed, she sprung to her hooves and rushed right to the doors. While Phillip, still trapped in the bubble, followed suit, Starlight and Rainbow sought it fit to look around.

"Huh. A...farmer's market?" Starlight blinked as she looked at a setup far away that contained stalls and people. "Or some kind of festival?"

"Ooh, a festival?" Rainbow zoomed up into the air and squinted. "With humans! Hey, why don't we go?"

"Girls!" Twilight called. "We're not here to sightsee! C'mon!"

As soon as the group had gathered again, they went inside of Headquarters. Starlight and Rainbow suddenly became two fillies in a chocolate factory, eyeing everything and talking to everyone their eyes just so happened to lay upon. As much as Twilight wanted to cut them loose, she didn't want any dimensional incidents to occur when she hadn't even talked to Celestia and Luna about alliances and such yet. The only problem was that it was hard to pull them away from all the agents who, likewise, were fascinated by them and wanted to meet them, at least not without resorting to magical means.

But as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures.

"Now, here's the plan," she said, as the quad squad were walking through the halls. "We're going to go see Captain O. If anyone knows about Odd Squad's library, it's her. We'll follow her directions from there."

"What directions?"

Everyone, Phillip included, gave startled whinnies as they backed up a few steps. Somehow, Captain O appeared right in front of Twilight when she wasn't looking where she was going, which was weird because, as far as she knew, none of the humans here had teleportation powers. Or magic, for that matter.

"I...oh." Twilight blinked. "Captain O? How did you-"

"Don't ask." Captain O waved her hand dismissively. "Now, what are you talking abo-" She stopped and eyed Starlight and Rainbow. "You brought guests?"

Suddenly, it dawned on Twilight that perhaps bringing her friends along was a bad idea. "Yes. This is Starlight Glimmer and Rainbow Dash. They're my friends from Equestria," she explained. "They wanted to come along with me. I'm looking for details on your library. You wouldn't happen to have one here, would you?"

"Ah. Nice to meet you both." Captain O nodded at the other unicorn and the pegasus before her attention was turned to Twilight. "There is a library, but it's not in Odd Squad. It's..." She bit her lip. "Wait, no. Sorry. Let me try again." A clearing of the throat. "There's a library in the center of town that is run by Agent Ook."

"Ook?" Rainbow asked incredulously. "Like the sound a monkey makes?"

"No. Ook. Pronounce 'book' without the hard B."

"Ook."

"Ook."

"...Ook."

"Ook."

"All right, we get it!" Starlight snapped, giving Rainbow a shove. "Do you have a map or something? We don't know where the center of town is."

Captain O reached behind her back and pulled out a large rolled-up map. "Here. It's marked, but you can use landmarks to find your way there."

Twilight magically snatched the map from Captain O's hands and unfurled it. Her gaze swept over the landmarks that were pointed out on it, from a sign showing where Odd Squad was located to the town square. She was easily able to spot a building that looked like a library, all the way to the right.

"I...thought you were going to ask what landmarks are."

"Uh, no? We know what landmarks are," Rainbow scoffed. "What, were you gonna teach us math or something?"

"Actually yes. Mathematics are a core part of Odd Squad. Not that any of you would understand that." Captain O glanced at the lone outlier. "Except for Phillip."

"I've been taught landmarks thousands of times and I still forget!"

As much as she wanted to snark, Twilight instead opted to roll up the map. "Thank you, Captain O. This is a great help."

"You're very welcome. Hope you find the answers you're looking fo-" There was a distant ding of a bell, and Captain O whirled around. "Opie, if you don't stop doing those bloody OddTok challenges, then I will have you fed to the kraken!"

"Sorry, Captain! But me and the Odd Squad Cheerleading Team are trying to determine who gets the last slice of Osgood's fudge pizza!"

The Captain slowly, but surely, moved her eyes to stare right into Twilight's soul with the weight of a boulder from the planet's first land formation.

"Please smite her."

"No. We'll be taking our leave."

"Drat."

The library wasn't all too hard to spot. Mainly because the building had the same circular seal Headquarters did, with the bananas and the jackalope and the stars, and the symbol that accompanied it was of an orange-colored open book. If one asked Twilight, those were pretty easy tells.

The main problem was the librarian inside who looked more annoyed that she had equine patrons than shocked that there were equine patrons in her library.

"If you don't mind waiting," she sneered, "then I would like to get back to stamping these books."

"Aren't you supposed to be serving patrons first?" Rainbow stopped, and then gave herself a smack on the forehead. "Great. The fact that I know that definitely makes the whole 'egghead' stuff true."

The librarian sighed, shoved her stamping supplies and books to the side, and adjusted her circular glasses as she glared at the group. "Fine. Welcome to the Odd Squad Library in Cambridge. How can I help you?"

Starlight took initiative this time around, trotting to the front of the group as far as she could get. "We're looking for someone by the name of 'Ook.' Have you seen them?"

"You're speaking to her."

For a moment, Starlight tried to process this. "Huh." She blinked. "I guess when you think about it, it makes sense."

"Mm." Ook glanced at some rectangular machine that sat on her desk. "So what can I help you with?"

"We're hoping you might have books on Odd Squad. Any and all of them."

"Any and all..." Ook shook her head. "That's nearly half of the library! You want to check out half of my library?! Is that even legal?! I- it's- what-" She abruptly stood up. "No. I don't care what the Academy has said. I don't care what Captain O has said. You're not checking out-"

"HEY!" Rainbow shouted, which quickly earned her a round of shushes from nearby patrons that she opted to ignore. "We're not gonna check them out! We're gonna read them!" She glanced at Twilight. "That is the plan, right?"

Twilight heaved a sigh. "Yes, Rainbow Dash, for the third time." She looked past the desk, hoping to find some kind of sign that would point her to where she was going. "Ook, we're specifically looking for books on unicorns. Earth's history with them, Odd Squad's history with them, and so on. Do you have anything like that?"

"If I do, it certainly isn't behind me." Ook pointed behind the group, and they turned to look accordingly. "In the back of the library, there is a section dedicated to Odd Squad history. Try looking there."

Although Twilight and the others gave their thanks to Ook, she wasn't receptive to it, instead choosing to wave them off before she got back to her stamping. Which Twilight didn't get -- rarely did she ever meet a librarian so rude -- but she supposed Earth had different customs when it came to libraries and the people that ran them.

A small part of her disliked Ook, though. Another small part wanted to give Rainbow some ape material to work with in terms of insults. But there were priorities.

Soon, everyone had a good pile of books stacked on the table. Twilight, sitting on one side, looked the titles over.

Odd Squad in History.

A Guide to the Phen-odd-ema of Odd Squad.

Unicorns: An Overly Comprehensive Guide That You Should Only Read If You Can Stand Reading Over a Thousand Pages in a Book.

She wrinkled her muzzle at the last one, which sounded far too wordy for her liking. She couldn't recall any books with those kinds of titles in the castle library, and had to wonder if the authors on Earth were just inept at titling stories. Who was the author of this one, anyway? Someone named 'Agent Olympia'? Yeah, that...didn't explain much. She decided to chalk it up to a simple skill issue and opened the book.

The picture was what caught her eye first. The question that should have been obvious from the get-go only just now dawned on her: why was Phillip turned back into a horse, like the book's picture, but Twilight and her friends weren't? Did Phillip do some experimenting on himself when he was practicing magic? It certainly wouldn't be impossible, as Twilight could personally attest to. Did Odd Squad change him? If Twilight, Rainbow, and Starlight had stayed in Odd Squad, would they be changed too?

For a moment, she contemplated asking Rainbow. But she probably wouldn't have an answer for her beyond the lines of "I dunno". So instead, Twilight decided to go back to reading.

Although Odd Squad has existed since the dawn of man, unicorns are rumored to have existed for far longer. Described as mythical creatures capable of granting any wish an ally desires and with a taste similar to that of sugar, it would often be a challenge for agents to go and catch one, despite most unicorns residing in a town above the clouds.

Twilight stopped. Read the last portion again. Glanced at Rainbow, and then blinked, because unicorns walking on clouds with cloud-walking spells was one thing, but unicorns actually living there without the use of any spells was another. She continued to read.

Rumors of alternate dimensions consisting of unicorns far unlike the ones agents know have circulated among society for years. One such dimension, referred to only as "Equestria", consists of unicorns, as well as pegasi, far unlike Earth's own. Attempts to reach this dimension by numerous Directors, as well as teams of famed agents, have proven unsuccessful, and research is still being performed on this dimension as Directors, as well as the Big O who is currently serving, see fit.

Pressing her hooves into the table, Twilight could feel her heart race.

They knew about Equestria.

They've known about Equestria for years.

She read the passage over and over again, trying to convince herself that she was seeing things. But eventually, she gave up that fight and accepted the truth. There was more to what Captain O had said than just "unicorns have existed around us for a long time". She would have lost her mind if she saw Twilight, Starlight, and Rainbow, because they looked so much more different than Phillip. But she hadn't.

Conjuring up a notepad and pencil, she began to write her notes. But there was more that had to be done, and so she grabbed Odd Squad in History to look at.

Twenty pages of notes were written in the span of several minutes. And Twilight could have kept going.

"Hey, Twilight." Starlight pointed to the notepad. "Why don't you just check out the books you have? You could always return them when you're done. I'm sure you can get through them before the return due date is up."

Twilight set down her pencil and glanced at Starlight as though she had lost a significantly-sized brain cell. "You really think Ook would let us check out all of these books?" she deadpanned. "She doesn't exactly seem like the type to be okay with ponies checking out her books."

"I think she'd do it just so she could get back to stamping. Or..." Starlight looked at the front desk, where, sure enough, Ook was busy stamping the insides of books. "Yeah, stamping."

"Okay, but besides that, Starlight...I'd have to make a whole new shelf just for borrowed Odd Squad books. I'd need to reorganize every book in the castle! And I just did that yesterday!"

"Ah, what's another day of organizing? You love organizing!"

Twilight gave an annoyed eyeroll. "Just tell me what you've got so far."

"A lot, actually!" Starlight spun her book around to show Twilight, smiling like a schoolfilly whose favorite subject was history. "Did you know that a lot of unicorns here actually live in a place called Cloud Town? And if agents go to them, they get free fish and chips -- whatever that is -- and they get a wish granted by the king!" She tapped her chin. "I wonder if I could get a wish granted..."

"We are not going to Cloud Town."

"Aww, and why not?" Phillip piped up. "I have family there! Er, closer family. It's been such a long while since I've seen them..."

"You can go to Cloud Town anytime! You come to this world often enough!" Twilight sighed. "Look. Everypony, reorganize your efforts towards Odd Squad history books once you've gathered enough data on Earth-bound unicorns. We need to find out as much as we can about the organization. Because, as I've just found out, they know about Equestria. And that means they might know about us."

Rainbow perked up. "Really? So they know all about my awesome feats?!" She put her hooves to her cheeks. "That's so cool!"

As much as Twilight loved Rainbow, she had to really resist that urge to give her a slap for missing the point. Instead, she sighed and waved her hoof. "Go back to reading and taking notes. There's a lot we need to cover."

Twilight was, to most ponies' surprise, a speed reader. There was a reason why she hit libraries' hard checkout limits and could return books in the span of a week. But she didn't exactly employ her skills all too often -- to her, reading a book was like digesting food. Eat too fast, and it won't digest well. Take the time to chew your food before it goes down the old esophagus, and you could actually savor it.

In this particular case, though, she was willing to make an exception.

With a stack of notes as thick as an average encyclopedia, and several specific ones about unicorns set aside in a folder, she made her way back to Equestria and began booking it for her dedicated study room, with the others following suit.

"Okay." She laid the notes down. "This will take me some time to organize."

"And what are you going to do with them once you organize them?" Starlight asked.

"I'm going to send them to the princesses, of course." Twilight looked up. "Or maybe it's best if I go to Canterlot myself. Yes, that's what I'll do. And you..." She jabbed a hoof at Phillip. "...are going to come with me."

Phillip took a nervous step back. "M-me? Why me? T-t-to meet...the princesses?"

From that question alone, Twilight could easily predict what was going to happen. And even though she would be a hypocrite, she was determined not to let it transpire. "Don't act so starstruck." she scolded. "I'm taking you because you're the only pony that we know has a connection to Odd Squad. Finding out who has crossed into Earth and is associated with Odd Squad would take up too much time." She raised a hoof and slammed it onto the table, using a quick burst of magic to stop the stack of notes from wobbling too much. "The time for action is now."

"You want help organizing?" Rainbow offered. "I'm not the best at it, but I wanna help however I can."

"Me too." Starlight nodded. "Just tell me where to begin."

Giving a grateful smile, Twilight waved them over, as well as Phillip, and split the stack of notes into four separate pieces, placing one of each in front of them. "Organize these by ascending era. The chunks of years are marked on the top. Earth years aren't like Equestrian years, so keep that in mind when you're organizing."

The room grew quiet as everyone diligently got to work. Twilight, fueled by dedication and the promise of a new future alliance for her home country, honed her focus, even though she couldn't shake the excitement that she would be seeing Celestia and Luna again after what felt like a long time.

But she had to shake it.

Because this time, she meant business.