The Equestrian Experience.

“Now let’s take this in steps, Twilight.” Placing a mug of warm cocoa in front of the dishevelled, but apparently now calm unicorn, Applejack sat down on the opposite side of the kitchen table and took a swig of her own cocoa. “What happened?”

“WellIwentovertoFluttershylikeweagreedthatIshouldandthen-”

“Twilight!” Breaking her normal unflappable demeanour, Applejack caught Twilight’s gaze and held it firmly. “Relax, take a couple of deep breaths. Goooood… now, what happened?”

Taking a few deep breaths, Twilight finally started to calm down. She looked at her cocoa, the marshmallows melting into foam. She took a sip from the cup and let the warm sweet fluid slide down her throat and smacked her lips. The cozy atmosphere of the Apple family’s kitchen finally calmed her from her previous state of turmoil With a long exhalation, she looked at Applejack. “Okay, Applejack, I’m relaxed.”

Applejack smiled. She had gotten Twilight to relax; now she needed to get to the bottom of this affair. When she had seen Twilight, with her mane in a mess and with a black eye, her first instinct was to immediately grab her trusty lasso rope and run with Twilight to Fluttershy’s house and give the human, whatever that was, what for. Imagine, attacking poor Fluttershy while she had her hooves full, taking care of that strange creature she had saved from the Everfree Forest.

Instead, she had decided to cool her hooves for now, or at least when she had all the facts. If this human thing could possess ponies and had gotten the better of Twilight, the most magically capable unicorn she knew, she was also safer erring on the side of caution. She would at least need Twilight to collect herself and probably also get hold of the rest of the Elements before they attempted a rescue mission.

Seeing that Twilight had gained a modicum of composure, Applejack took another swig of her cocoa, setting the cup down on the table next to her hat. “Good, Twilight, now slowly tell me what happened.”

“Well, I went over to Fluttershy's cottage like we had agreed to,” Twilight started off saying before stopping to take a breath.

“Okay, so far so good. Then what happened?”

“Well, I went over to her house to examine the human—”

“The what now? Twilight, what is a human exactly?” She cocked her eyebrows and tilted her head slightly, surprise and confusion evident on her face.

“The human. You know, the creature that Fluttershy found in the Everfree Forest shortly after we returned from performing in the Hearth's Warming Eve play in Canterlot.” Twilight quickly caught herself and gave an embarrassed rub of her neck with a forehoof. “Oh sorry, I forgot that only Fluttershy and I have talked to him.”

“No problem, Twilight. So he can really talk? Who would've thought? And he’s called hooman? Hmm, that’s a mighty odd name.” Scratching her chin with a front hoof, Applejack tried to think of any pony name she heard that came close to it.

“It’s human, and that’s not his name, it’s his species - he is a human. He told me his name is-”

A loud pop that came from over both their heads made them jump and left the kitchen dimmer than it had been before.

They both looked up at the ceiling lamp. “Hmm, that’s funny. Ah could have sworn Ah changed that yesterday. Just a moment, Twilight.” Getting up from the table, Applejack went over to one of the kitchen cupboards, soon returning with a new light bulb in her mouth. “This’ll onry take a shhecond.”

She laid the new light bulb on the kitchen table to get a stepladder. As she did, the light bulb was encased in a purple aura.

“Here, let me help you.” Twilight said as she used her magic to change the light bulbs and levitated the spent one to the recycle bin in the corner of the room.

“Why thank you, Twilight. That’s mighty kind of you.” Sitting down at the table again, Applejack took a sip from her cocoa. “Now what was the human’s name?”

“Well as I was saying, his name is—”

“COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!!!” As the human’s name rolled over Twilight tongue, her voice was drowned out completely by a plump rooster that suddenly appeared from under the kitchen's wood stove.

“Dagnabbit, Eggwell! What are you doing in here?! Pardon me, Twilight.” Applejack leaped at the rooster and grabbed it as quick as a whip before it had time to hide under the stove again. Holding the rooster, who was now squawking in protest, under her right forehoof, she carried it to the kitchen door. “I know you don’t like the cold, Eggwell, but if I told you once, I told you a million times, I don’t want you or any of the other chickens in the kitchen. And Big Mac just installed that new and improved heating lamp in your coop so you have no excuse for sneaking in here all the time.”

Reaching the kitchen door, she opened it slightly ajar and gently chucked the rooster out, receiving an annoyed sounding crow from the rooster for her troubles. “And stop crowing, the sun has been up for hours!” Returning once again to her spot at the kitchen table, she gave Twilight a sheepish grin. “Sorry, Twilight, old Eggwell has a bad habit of trying to sneak in here every chance he gets during winter time. Anyway, what did you say the human’s name was again?”

Recovering after the masterly display of chicken wrangling she just seen, Twilight gave a small cough to clear her throat. “As I was saying, his name is.” Stopping, Twilight looked over both her shoulders to make sure that there weren’t any more sources of interruption. Not being able to find any she continued. “It’s—”

“APPLEJACK!!!” Once again the human’s name was drowned out by an outside source.

Interrupted for the third time, Twilight gave a resigned sigh. It was lucky she didn’t have a pile of papers with her, otherwise she might have been tempted to throw them over her shoulder in pure annoyance, followed with one of her trademark groans. Turning her head towards living room to see who had interrupted her this time, she saw that it was Granny Smith, who for some reason had her head under the sofa.

“What is it, Granny? Did you get stuck under the sofa again?” Applejack once again left the table to assist her Granny, leaving Twilight to stew in her increasing irritation.

“Nope, nothing of the kind.” Pulling her head out from under the sofa, Granny Smith turned and faced Applejack. “But I just got a letter from Auntie Applesauce; seems she lost her dentures when she visited last week. Have you seen them?”

“Can’t say that Ah have, Granny,” Applejack said as she looked around the living room to see if she could spot them. “Ah’ll help you look when Ah’m done talking to Twilight.”

Listening to the conversation from her spot in the kitchen, a peculiar thought struck Twilight. What was happening? All day it seemed that something strange happened every time the human’s name was spoken. Could there be a connection? Hypothetically, there could well be; she would have to test it, but now wasn’t the time to lose track of her priorities.

Returning back to the kitchen, Applejack look even more embarrassed than she did after the Eggwell interruption. “Begging your pardon, Twilight, but Ah think Ah got the name; this time was it—“

An almost thundering snap, like that expected from a full grown crocodile, accompanied by a wail of pain was suddenly heard from the living room.

“Don’t worry, Applejack. I found them,” Granny Smith said. “Seems she dropped them on the floor again. Woah nelly, she seems to have gone for quality this time. That snap hurt more than when I stepped on them that time at last year’s reunion. I’ll just pack these up and send them to her.”

Having at least some proof for her hypothesis, and since Granny Smith seemed untouched by her ordeal, Twilight gave Applejack a forgiving smile and said, “Yes, that is his name, but let’s just call him the human until further notice.”

“Alright Twilight, so how did yah figure that the human possessed Fluttershy? Didn’t Princess Celestia say he didn’t have any magical powers?”

“Well… yes, but she did have a hard time getting any magic to work on him; he could have magical powers she overlooked.” As she finished the sentence, Twilight froze, unable to believe the words she had uttered aloud. She had just said that Princess Celestia had made a mistake. The sentence left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. Had she let herself get riled up into a panic? She looked down at her cup of cocoa. Did she really—

“Twi, are you okay?” The sound of Applejack’s concerned voice brought her back from her thoughts.

“Hm, yes I’m okay.” As much as she tried to adopt a neutral tone, even she could hear the tinge of doubt in her words.

Applejack decided to bring the conversation back on track. “Alright, Twilight, you went over to Fluttershy's. Then what happened?”

Looking back up at Applejack, she continued. “Well, I had a talk with the human and Fluttershy, but then I discovered that the human wasn’t wearing the collar that the Princess gave us.”

“Didn’t the Princess give us that collar to use only in case of an emergency?” Applejack cut Twilight off, her brows furrowed in growing consternation.

“But this was an emergency!” Looking desperate, Twilight leaned over the table.

“Why exactly is that, Twilight? I mean, he wasn’t wearing the collar, but according to Fluttershy, he’s so skinny and scrawny that he can hardly stand on his own hooves.”

Twilight suddenly realized why her friend couldn’t see her point, a point she considered to be painfully obvious. Applejack was an earth pony; for her, strength was the most important factor in determining how dangerous a creature was. A timberwolf or a dragon had amazing strength that they could turn on their victims, and therefore they were a menace. Individual parasprites or aphids did not have strength of their own, but collectively they had it in abundance and could lay waste to Sweet Apples Acres, as they had demonstrated with devastating effectiveness in the past. Physical strength was her only parameter for determining a threat.

On the other hand, Twilight, being a unicorn, saw threats in a different light. A creature could be immobile or even seem dead, but it could still be a hazard if it had abilities that negated its physical strength. Both the real and literary world contained creatures that had had little physical strength, but whose magic made them formidable. The unicorn Ebonhorn from the Silverwing book series fitted the stereotype perfectly.

She needed Applejack to see this from a unicorn’s point of view.

Straightening herself, she looked at Applejack. “He might not need his physical strength to be dangerous, I mean you saw the expression Celestia had after she read his mind. He must be a problem. Also, I found other signs that prove that he is a risk,” Twilight said as she used her magic to pull two scrolls out of her saddlebag that sat by the door. “Look at this.”

“What’s all this?” Looking at the papers, Applejack couldn’t discern the notes that looked so chaotic, that it seemed like an epileptic spider had walked over the paper.

“These are the notes I took while the human was recovering.” Pointing at the start of the first paper, Twilight continued. “This is the amount of healing balm his wounds needed when Fluttershy found him.”

“Alright, so far so good, but seeing as Ah ain't a doctor, what does this have to do with anything?”

“At first, Fluttershy hardly needed to use any. She didn’t know how he would take to it, so she started with a dose that, under normal circumstances, would hardly be enough for a foal, adding more when she saw that he didn’t seem to have detrimental effects from it.”

“Okay, so he doesn’t need large amounts of balm to heal, how does that make him dangerous?” Applejack replied as she looked from the scroll to Twilight, her confusion growing with each word the unicorn said.

“Well, he didn’t need much to start with. It almost seemed like his body was guzzling it up like a foal would candy.” Going to the bottom of the scroll, Twilight pointed at the last set of numbers. “This is the amount she needed when he fell and broke his wrists a couple of weeks ago.”

Applejack blinked a couple of times to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. “Well I’ll be, that’s quite a bit more… and this was for two wrists?”

“It’s double the amount that he needed to heal all the tissue damage and all the fractures in his lower arm. Then, there is his physical state. The packs of I.V. fluids that he got were magic-infused to insure that he would get all the nutrition he needed.” Looking at her to make sure she had Applejack's undivided attention, she continued. “However, after a short time, it stopped working and then his body seemed to start eating itself to get fed. Now imagine if he can do that to his own body, what will he do to others when he is fully fit?”

Applejack looked at Twilight with a worried expression. She wasn’t sure if Twilight’s fear was well-founded or if she was over-obsessing as she sometimes did. This was, however, the first she had heard of something like this and something deep within her brain, a certain amount of a pony’s natural caution, was starting to form.

Granted, there hadn’t been a famine in Equestria as long as anyone could remember, but she knew from health class in school and from observations that what Twilight described wasn’t natural. When a pony didn’t get enough food its coat would get grimier in colour and it would look increasingly gaunt. Given enough time, the pony in question would die from starvation. It would, however, take far longer than the time it took the human, and the pony’s body would never grow so thin. This was one of the reasons that the Windigo Winter hadn’t killed half of the ponies in the three pony realms.

“So, he became that thin and weak because his body basically ate itself… but how could he survive then? No pony or any other creature I ever heard of can do that and survive.” Applejack could feel the nervousness spike a few times, making her throat suddenly feel dry.

“I don’t know, but there is more.” Seeing that Applejack finally seemed to get her point of view, Twilight continued. “That allergic reaction that made him lose what little fur he had… Doctor Cardio and I thought that it came from the food essence in the I.V. bags, but according to what Fluttershy told me and what I asked him today, neither his species in general or him personally have any problem eating fruits and vegetables. If he’s telling the truth, then how is it happening to him? I have a hypothesis – it could be because of the magic.”

Applejack looked at Twilight as if she had just said that she was a magical dancing parasprite that granted three wishes. “Because of magic…but Twilight, that makes even less sense. I mean, there is magic in everything, even the critters and the other races are magic. How could he survive if he has a bad tolerance for magic?”

“I don’t know; that’s one of the reasons I want him to wear the collar until we can be certain that he isn’t dangerous, and it leads me to one of the other things that I’ve been thinking about. I don’t think that he is from Equestria.” Twilight used her magic to roll the scroll up and placed it back in her saddlebag.

“What do you mean? You think that he’s from Griffenheim or Minotauria or around those parts… you don’t suppose that Rainbow Dash was right about him being an alien do you?” Applejack suddenly felt a tingle running up her spine at the thought.

“What? No, of course not. Aliens are just make-believe; even with magic, it is impossible to travel beyond the sun and moon. But maybe he’s one of the species that ponies heard of in the past, but never seen, like the Underfolk.”

When Twilight finished, an eerie silence fell over the kitchen. Both mares had grown up with tales of the Underfolk, a shadowy race that walked across the land when the fog laid dense over Equestria and lured ponies astray, never to be heard from again.

“W-W-What makes you think that he might be Un… one of them?” Feeling the tingle in her spine turn into a cold shiver like someone had laid a line of ice cubes from her neck to her tail, Applejack looked at Twilight. For the first time this day she felt truly afraid.

“Well… this.” Using her magic, Twilight took a new item from her saddle bag and laid it on the table between them.

It was a little black case, but unlike anything that the two ponies had ever seen in their lives. It was so thin even too thin to even hold one of the new fancy thin fountain pens that were the craze among the rich in Canterlot. The bottom looked even more strange, and Applejack noticed that there was a picture of an apple with a bite taken out of it. The top however was mostly glass, but they couldn’t see anything inside.

“What is it?” Applejack asked, giving the case a light push with her hoof.

“I’m not sure; I accidently broke it a couple of hours after I got it home, but I think it’s a magic mirror.” Seeing the sudden alert look in Applejack’s face, she raised her hooves in a calming manner. “Don’t worry; it doesn’t work anymore since it broke. When I helped Fluttershy take care of him after she found him, I saw it lying on Fluttershy’s living room table. She had found it in one of his pockets when she removed the wet and bloody clothes from him. I know it was probably wrong, but I borrowed it for further study without asking Fluttershy if it was okay, and I’m glad that I did. When I came home I studied it and tried to make it work, but I couldn’t make it work neither with magic or hooves. When I gave up Spike asked if he could give it a try, I was frustrated after I’d been trying to figure out what it was for hours without success, so I let him try while I got a bite to eat.”

“Then what happened?” Applejack asked as she took the strange object in her hooves to get a better look at it.

***

Entering the kitchen with the strange mirror in his claws, Spike the dragon looked up at Twilight, who was sitting at her kitchen counter. “Hey, Twilight, I think I made it work.”

Dropping her sandwich from her telekinetic grasp onto her plate, Twilight looked up at him, her eyes wide with sudden excitement. “That’s fantastic, Spike. Here, let me see!” As she was about to get up from her seat, a high almost threatening growl unexpectedly came from her stomach. “Or on second thought, could you bring it over here so we can look at it while I eat?” Twilight gave an embarrassed giggle as she scooted over so Spike could sit next to her. “So, how does it work?” she asked as the dragon sat down next to her.

“Well, you press this square at the bottom and then the mirror comes to life.” Working while he talked, Spike pressed the square.

“Well I know that, but what do you do next.” Looking at the uncooperative mirror with a bit of disdain, Twilight once again levitated her sandwich with her magic.

“Then you take your claw and move the little box over like this, and then this picture appears.” Spike moved the mirror so it lay between them on the table. “What do you think all those pictures and strange letters are?”

“Hmm, I don’t know.” Rubbing her chin with a hoof, Twilight made to pick up the mirror; she stopped as her stomach growled again to put an end to that course of action. “I'd better eat. We’ll look at it after I’ve finished.”

“Twilight, do you mind if I look at it a bit more while you eat?” Spike looked at her with eyes like he was a dog begging for scraps at the dinner table.

Twilight thought it over for a while. It seemed to be a magic mirror, but it hadn’t helped its owner defend himself from a timberwolf, so it wasn’t a weapon. “Hmmm…okay, Spike, but you have to be careful with it. It’s not ours and it’s going back to Fluttershy first thing in the morning.” She would have said more, but the dragon had already grabbed the mirror and ran into the main library room.

Twilight smiled at Spike’s enthusiasm over the mirror. Normally when she had a project, Spike would help but not be interested in the project itself. With this enthusiasm they could work together like equals, and she had no doubt that they would solve the enigma of the mirror in no time. She returned her attention to her sandwich still hanging in midair; she closed her eyes and opened her mouth, ready to fully enjoy her meal.

The bite she was about to take was interrupted by an eerie sound from the living room. “Um, Twilight?” Spike's voice sounded cautious like the time he had accidently hit a hornet nest while playing ball with Lickety Split.

As Twilight was about to lay her sandwich on her plate to see what Spike was up to, the eerie sound was replaced with sounds that Twilight had never heard before. It produced sounds that she imagined would be appropriate if she was in the deepest pits of Tartarus. The shock of the sudden horrible noise made her sandwich fly up into the ceiling where it disintegrated into pieces on an atomic scale. Ignoring the small pieces of sandwich that fell from the ceiling like a light snow, Twilight ran into the living room.

The scene that met her was horrendous, Spike was standing in the middle of the room, and the mirror that he held in his right hand was spewing out the atrocities that were now assaulting her ears. But what made her jaw hit the floor was the way Spike held his left hand high in the air and was making a sign as if he was trying to make a shadow image of a Minotaur’s head. His head was shooting back and forth to the sounds with such violent shakes that it seemed like an unseen force was trying to pull his head clean off his shoulders.

“SPIKE!!!” Twilight shouted, trying to get the dragon’s attention, but there was nothing to be done - the drake seemed to be lost to an outside force.

She began to panic, seeing her number one assistant apparently in the thrall of an unseen evil, for what else could make such horrible noises and do this to a dragon? She had to act; she had to stop the mirror before her surrogate brother was horribly injured. Using her magic, she grabbed the mirror and tried to pull it from his claw. It didn’t budge; Spike's grip was so firm that when she pulled the mirror up towards the ceiling, the result was that Spike was now hanging in midair, still holding the mirror, his head still going back and forth more and more violently. Twilight tried to shake the mirror to get Spike to let go, but he kept his grip. Twilight became more and more flustered, trembling at the wild thoughts running through her mind.

“Spike, for the love of Faust! Let go of that evil contraption!” She began to shake the mirror until Spike seemed to disappear into a light mulberry blur.

She continually pleaded him to release the magic, but it seemed to be glued to his claw. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Spike lost his grip on the infernal contraption, sending him flying through the room. The mirror flew in the opposite direction hitting the wall and finally falling silent.

As the noise came to an abrupt stop, Spike was finally released from its enchantment. Blinking a few times, he shook his head sideways to clear his head. When his vision cleared, however, he saw that he was heading straight towards one of the library’s walls. Screaming, he held his claws up in front of his face in a vain attempt to soften the incoming collision. As the collision came closer and closer, a bright raspberry aura surrounded him and directed him gently to the pillow corner in the foals’ section of the library.

Landing softly in the pillow corner, Twilight rushed over to him. “Spike! Oh my Faust, are you alright?!”

“Yeah I’m okay Twi-mph.” Spike didn’t get to finish his response as he was held in a tight embrace by Twilight.

“Oh thank Celestia! I thought I lost you!” Almost sobbing, Twilight held him even tighter and started to rock him back and forth, like she was holding a small child who had just escaped the jaws of death by the narrowest of margins.

Quickly tiring of Twilight’s hysterics, Spike hated it when Twilight hugged him like he was still a baby. “Twilight, I’m fine,” he said, pushing Twilight back to escape her embrace.

“Are you certain?” Examining him and turning him around with her magic, Twilight made all the checks she could to see if the dragon was fine in both his physical and magic capacities before putting him down.

“I think so. I mean, I don’t remember exactly what happened. I was checking out the mirror and then this feeling came over me. It felt like joy and power all rolled into one, and the next thing I remember, I was flying through the air…What happened?”

Twilight wasn’t sure, but this had all the earmarks of one of the possessions she had read about in the books in the Royal Archives during her studies. The possessed had no control over their body, check. They would often try to hurt themselves - well the head shaking could only be seen as evidence of that, so check. And finally, at the start of the possession the victim would feel exalted, giving the possessor the opportunity they need to take control. If the spell was broken before the caster could take hold of the host, the victim would not remember a thing, check. There wasn’t any doubt in her mind that mirror was a portal for communication with creatures that could possess intelligent creatures.

The fact that the human hadn’t used it on the timberwolf also made sense - timberwolves were constructs controlled by the spirits of wolves and therefore could not be doubly possessed. This brought up a new problem: what is that creature? She had never heard or read about any such creature before. She had first thought it a simple animal, but Fluttershy had told her that it wore clothes and it could speak Equestrian. That in itself didn’t mean much. There were many creatures in Equestria that could talk - some sheep and cows to mention a few. Even among the monsters, there were sentient beings like Stephen Magnet or dragons.

The creature’s clothes were a different matter, but that could also be explained. Maybe the creature had stolen them, maybe he had received them as a gift from someone or maybe he was a runaway pet whose owner liked to dress him up. Having seen the clothes, or rather the sorry remains of them, the last hypothesis in particular seemed to make sense. The clothes were not made for outdoor use, and they didn’t seem to give much protection against the cold. They were also quite flimsy - the timberwolf’s teeth and claws seemed to have sliced through them like butter. This was to be expected, but they also had holes that weren’t from the timberwolf. It seemed like just walking through the forest had been enough to tear them.

All this, however, had to wait. She needed to act and act fast. “Spike, are you absolutely sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah… I’m fine, Twilight, just a little dazed by my flight. Why?” Spike asked as he looked at her with a little bit of annoyance at being asked the same question repeatedly.

“I need you to send a letter to Princess Celestia.”

***

“So that’s why the Princess came so quickly,” Applejack interrupted Twilight’s story and laid the mirror back on the table. “But why haven’t you told anyone about this before now? And Ah’m guessing from the way the other girls talk, about him that you haven’t told them either.”

The question caused a flicker of guilt to cross Twilight’s face. “I wasn’t sure of my suspicions, and you know the ponies in town. I didn’t want to start a panic like the last time Fluttershy took in an unknown creature.”

“Do you mean the roc she let stay with her while its wing healed? Just a moment, Twilight,” Applejack said as she got up from the table and walked into the living room. When she returned, she held a brush in her mouth, putting in front of Twilight on the table. “I thought you would like to straighten your mane just a tad,” she said as she returned to her seat.

Twilight turned her head and looked into one of the immaculate polished brass pots hanging over Granny Smith’s stove. The reflection that met her made her twitch. Her mane looked just as mangled if not more so when she had had her mental breakdown during the Smarty Pants incident last summer. Using her magic to grab the brush, she started to meticulously restore her mane. “That’s not the creature I was thinking of.”

“Then how about the baby hydra she found alone in Froggy Bottom bog?” That hadn’t been too bad…well, at least until its mother showed up and demanded it back. Applejack had had to build two new barns after that episode, and the mayor had even brought in new legislation that made it illegal to bring magical creatures into town. She had had to cancel it, however, when Princess brought Philomena to visit Twilight. Seeing that Twilight shook her head. Applejack scratched her head with her hoof. Suddenly, like lighting, the answer came to her, making her ask Twilight with terror in her voice. “You don’t mean…?”

Finishing with her mane and seeing that her friend finally had remembered which creature she was thinking of, Twilight laid the brush back on the table and gave her friend a knowing, but worried look. “Yes Applejack, I’m thinking of the honey ba—”

Twilight was interrupted as Applejack leaped over the table and held her hoof over her mouth. “Don’t say its name or it’ll hear you!”

***

Having been so preoccupied with the problem at hand, Twilight had forgotten the superstition that had grown around the honey badger or Mellivora capensis as it was known in her book on Zebrican wildlife. Nopony knew how it had gotten to Equestria. At first nopony even knew what it was. Apple Bloom had found it on the edge of the Everfree Forest on her way back from a visit to Zecora’s. It had seemed dead when she found it lying next to a dead Everfree viper. It had, presumably in its ignorance of Equestrian wildlife, gotten too near to the most poisonous type of viper in all of Equestria, and that miscalculation had cost it its life. It had, in the ten seconds the vipers poison usually took to work, had time to bite the viper to death. Feeling sorry for the little fellow, who looked similar to the friendly badgers Fluttershy took care of, Apple Bloom had taken the poor little creature to Fluttershy, so it at least could get a proper burial.

It had been a beautiful burial… well, as beautiful as a something as sad as a burial could be. All the girls and the critters were there to support Fluttershy - they all knew how hard she took it when an animal died, even an animal she didn’t know personally. The badger was laid in a little open coffin so all the participants could show it their last respects. Under the direction of Fluttershy, her songbirds sang a lovely requiem for the little fellow before they buried him. After a eulogy by Fluttershy, they prepared to lay the badger to rest, but then something that seemed like a miracle happened. Seemingly returning from the land of the dead, the badger stirred and sat up in the coffin. The other Elements, the Cutie Mark Crusaders and the critters were taken aback and afraid, since this seemed to be utterly unnatural. Nopony had ever heard of an animal that had survived the bite of an Everfree viper. Fluttershy, however, had been ecstatic to see the, to quote her, “poor little dear” alive again.

The words “poor little dear”, however, turned out to be misplaced. “Unholy terror” would have been more appropriate. Between eating most of the snakes in Ponyville to burrowing under half of Sweet Apple Acres to devour the sweet apple tree roots to eating a large percentage ofHoney Bee, the town beekeeper’s honey and bee larva, it just plainlydid not give a horse apple.

Fluttershy had tried her best to make it to behave. When it had eaten most of her snake friends, she had cried and evacuated the remaining snakes. When it had gone on a rampage in Sweet Apple Acres, she had asked it nicely to stop. When it all but obliterated Honey Bee’s beehives, she had been as firm as the timid pegasus could be. And when all else had failed, she had been forced to use The Stare on the badger. The Stare was known throughout the animal kingdom as the most horrible experience any animal could see in its lifetime. But the honey badger had shook it off as if it was nothing and went on to present Fluttershy with a raised middle claw. No pony, not even Fluttershy knew what this gesture meant, but it was clearly meant as an insult.

Animal control, the local police, Twilight’s magic, even the Wonderbolts had proven to be no match for the furry demon that now held Ponyville in its powers. It had all seemed hopeless until Zecora came to town as she did each week to sell her herbal remedies to the spa twins. Seeing the honey badger and the chaos it had unleashed upon the poor ponies in Ponyville, she had acted quickly and resolutely as only Zecora knew how. The solution had been so simple that even Twilight with her book smarts or Fluttershy with her knowledge of animals had thought it impossible.

Confronting the honey badger in the town square, while all the ponies looked on in terror expecting the brave Zebra to be turned inside out, she had told the black and white miscreant, “Nyegere, you have had your fun. Now behave before I make you undone.”

The honey badger had been as impressed with her threat as it had been with the other attempts to make it behave. In other words, it didn’t give a horse apple.

Seeing that the honey badger was ignoring her, Zecora had then upped the ante. “Ponies, animals and dragons you pushed around with your might. But do you think you can take on a Zebra in a fight?”

The direct challenge had been more than the honey badger could accept from the zebra. Jittering and howling in that same way that the ponies in Ponyville had come to fear during the half day its reign of terror had lasted, it had charged Zecora. All the ponies had screamed and covered their eyes, expecting the noble zebra to be torn limb from limb before them. Then there was silence. Was the fight over? Had brave Zecora joined her ancestors in zebra heaven? Looking out from their hiding places, the ponies saw a sight that none of them could believe. Zecora was still standing and in front of her lay the honey badger, covering its eyes and shaking like a scared foal. Zecora was holding a hoof mirror in her hoof and looked down at the scourge of Ponyville.

“If you promise to behave and not to scoff, I’ll call the other Badger off,” she had said in a firm voice as she looked down at the honey badger. The badger had whimpered and nodded at her request.

Being a native of Zebrica, she knew that the only thing a honey badger feared was another honey badger, or the sight of one that seemed fiercer than it thought it was. The mirror had fooled the honey badger into thinking that Zecora had what seemed as an extremely fierce honey badger on her side.

Putting the mirror back in one of her saddlebags, she had then turned back to the former smooth criminal king of Ponyville. “You are not allowed to frighten or harm ponies ever again, and no more will Ponyville be your domain. But being from Zebrica myself and often feeling alone, I wouldn’t mind for you to share my home. This however depends on you not acting depraved, to stay with me you need to behave.”

Looking up at her with sad and remorseful eyes, the honey badger had once again nodded and with a series of barks had given its acceptance.

Giving the now docile and seemingly harmless little fellow an almost motherly smile, Zecora petted it on its head and said. “Good, now apologise to these ponies you must, if you want to earn their and mine trust.”

That had been the end of the terror of Ponyville. Under the watchful eyes of Zecora, the honey badger had given its heartfelt apologies to all the ponies it had offended. It now lived with Zecora in her home in the Everfree Forest, following her around like a trusty dog. It had never set its paws in Ponyville since that day, but to this day and for many years into the future, mothers would warn their foals that if they didn’t behave, the honey badger would come. Such was its reputation and legacy. And seeing how it behaved before Zecora tamed it, it probably didn’t mind.

***

Pushing Applejack’s hoof away from her mouth, Twilight looked at the farm pony that, like most of the ponies in Ponyville, was terrified that the honey badger would return. “Don’t worry, Applejack. However, it brings us to the problem at hand - the human.”

“What do you mean, Twilight? Do you really think that he could be as bad as the—” She visibly bit her own tongue to stop herself from uttering the name of the badger who must not be named. Moving back to her seat, Applejack looked at Twilight with a serious expression. “I mean, I’m not convinced that he is that dangerous. He might have had a magic mirror that could possess ponies, but you said it yourself that it doesn’t work anymore, and it clearly didn’t work on the timberwolf that almost ate him. Also, and not to be rude, but if you could pin him in a tussle with no magic, he can’t be that strong. I’m also thinking that if he had those powers you speak of, why didn’t he try to use them on you? Sorry, Twilight, but your theory just don’t make much sense from where I’m sitting.”

Twilight wanted to prove the flaws in Applejack’s points, but the only major hole in Applejack’s statements was that it was called a hypothesis not a theory. Applejack might not be the most well-read pony Twilight had ever met, but she had, in many ways, lived her life more fully than Twilight. She knew life and what it could throw at you, and she knew to sometimes let the waves that were life hit you and roll over you. The only bad thing to come out of it, no matter how big the wave looked when it hit, was a wet mane.

Had she let herself become riled up? Had the fact that she had seen the one pony she had looked up to for most of her life be shocked at what she had seen inside the human’s mind…made her blind to alternatives? Had her focused mind become too focused on one answer to a question as it sometimes did? She remembered the embarrassing and quite dangerous experiences she had had with her missing friendship report and with Pinkie Pie’s Pinkie Sense. If only she could use the mind-reading spell like Princess Celestia, but that spell was beyond even her own abilities. Not to mention that with the human awake and cognizant, it would be highly unethical to use it on him without his permission. Twilight was at a loss, searching her brain for something, anything to support her claim from earlier.

“Fluttershy!” The sudden outburst came as a surprise to both of them.

“Come again, Twi?” Said Applejack; she looked at Twilight, not knowing what to make of her outburst. “If he can’t use his supposed powers on a timberwolves, Ah doubt he can possess Fluttershy. She might not look it, but she’s made of sturdier stuff than most ponies; the only problem is she doesn’t see it herself.”

“It was the way she acted that made me think she had been possessed.” Twilight knew she had to move fast before Applejack closed her mind to this angle. “When I had the upper hand and was about to put the collar on him, she intervened.”

Applejack didn’t look too impressed as she began her rebuttal. “Twi, if she thought you were hurting him, and if she likes him as she likes us or her critters, then of course she would get mad at you. Remember when that dragon had us out for the count back last year?”

“Well, that’s my point. Normally, when Fluttershy gets emotional, she tends to get very angry, like she did at the Gala when the garden animals wouldn’t talk with her, or with the dragon. But the way she told me off at her house was different. She didn’t yell, or tell me that I was stronger than him and should know better. Even though she was angry, she was so composed that it was almost scary. I’ve never seen Fluttershy like that before.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like the normal Fluttershy, but does that prove that he possessed her?” Applejack could see why Twilight, still high on adrenaline after a tussle, could think that. “Maybe we better look into—”

Her sentence was cut short by an energetic knocking at the kitchen door. As she got up and walked towards the door, the knocking started again and a voice called out.

“Hey AJ! Let’s go, those trees won't drop all that snow of their branches by themselves!”

“Hold your horses, Rainbow Dash. I’m coming!” Applejack yelled out as she reached the door and opened it for her friend.

With her usual swagger, Rainbow walked into the kitchen before Applejack could invite her in. She took off her green wool cap and stuffed it into a pocket of her matching vest. “Are we going? I walked over here to save energy, and I bet that I can get all the snow out of your trees in under six minutes flat and set a new snow clearing record.”

Applejack smiled. Since her failed attempt to beat her old record last year, when her left wing struck one of the trees, Rainbow Dash had hardly talked about anything else for the entire winter. The fact that she lowered herself to walk out to Sweet Apple Acres to make sure she had all her strength for the task ahead told as much.

“Well, I’m afraid we might have to wait a couple of days for your attempt. We might have a bigger problem.” Applejack closed the kitchen door and returned to her seat at the table.

“WHAT!!! What do you mean that we have to postpone my new record?” Rainbow looked like someone had just told her that her dream of joining the Wonderbolts was a silly child’s fantasy. “The snow is perfect, there’s hardly any wind, and I took this day out of my busy training schedule to do this!”

“That might be, Rainbow, but something has come up that is just a tad more important than your personal records.” Trying to be as diplomatic as she could, Applejack poured a cup of cocoa for her.

Rainbow licked her lips. Her personal records were important, but the weather today was made for a steaming cup with marshmallows. “Well…okay, but can I also have a cookie?” she asked, seeing that the cookie jar was standing on the table.

“Sure, have two,” Applejack pushed the cookie jar towards her.

Cocoa and some of Granny Smith’s homemade cookies that sealed the deal, Rainbow took off her vest and walked over to the table. “Well okay, but I’m still setting that record.” Her pride saved, she walked over to the kitchen table; as she reached it, she finally saw Twilight. “Twilight, what happened to you? You got quite the shiner there.” Being as active as she was, Rainbow got scrapes and bruises all the time so she didn’t think much of it. “Did you fall off the ladder in the library again?”

“No,” Twilight answered as she took a hoof up to her eye. She had all but forgotten about it. The sting it gave when it came in contact with her hoof told her that she might need to use some healing ointment when she came back to the library.

“Well that’s the reason we have to wait with your record. Twi said Fluttershy might be in a bit of trouble.” Taking the two cookies out of the jar and laying them in front of Rainbow Dash, Applejack pushed the cookie jar into the middle of the table.

“Is it the alien?!” Rainbow shot to her hooves; her wings shot out from her body, and she looked like she was ready for a fight. “He is a spy isn’t he? Did he call his mother ship?! Are they invading?! Has he gotten out his hidden space wand and is holding Fluttershy hostage?!”

“What? No!” Applejack and Twilight exclaimed in unison as they also stood up, surprised at the sudden change in Rainbow’s demeanour.

“Well then, what happened?” Rainbow’s wings folded back to her back; she didn’t, however, sit back down.

“Well, Twilight thinks he might have possessed Fluttershy,” Applejack said as she sat back down.

“Can he do that? The princess said that he didn’t have any magic in him. Unless he has some sort of brain-altering space technology inside him like those alien anal probes they wrote about in The National Equestrier.”

There was a moment of silence while both Applejack and Twilight took in what they just heard. Twilight was the first to speak, her tone incredulous. “You read The National Equestrier?”

“Yes…I mean no! They just happened to have some lying around at the dentist office the last time I was there. I mean, who would read that stupid tabloid? It’s not like I subscribe to get the newest juiciest gossip about the Wonderbolts.” Rainbow backed slightly away as she got defensive. Hopefully she had dodged the bullet on that one; her badass reputation wouldn’t be helped if her friends found out that she enjoyed lying on her bed reading, squealing like a little filly every time she found a new juicy titbit about the Wonderbolts.

“Okay, that all aside…. no, there are no probes or butts involved as far as I know. And Rarity already told you that’s just silly,” Applejack said as she shook her head to get the mental images out.

“Then how did he do it?” Rainbow asked, sitting back down at the table. “I mean, from what I know, possessing somepony is not something just anypony can do. Are you absolutely sure he’s not an alien spy?”

“That is the one thing that we’re sure he’s not.” Twilight took over from Applejack. “I mean we had a… disagreement. That’s where I got this black eye, but it’s more the way Fluttershy acted that worries me.”

“With those hayfry arms and fragile hooves he’s got, how could he give you that? No offence, Twilight, but I’ve seen you been hit with countless things in your face without a mark to show for it.” Rainbow looked even more surprised than before.

“The best way to describe it was that he cheated. I had him pinned and was about to put the Gleipnir on him, but…he tickled me.” Twilight stopped. Thanks to her and her BBBFF’s good relations, this was the first real fight she had ever had. And to be taken so unaware by such a cheap trick stung her pride.

“You got a black eye from him tickling you.” Rainbow had a hard time stifling a small giggle. “You’re lucky he didn’t hug you or you would have ended up in the hospital.” She couldn’t hold back her laughter. The looks she got from Twilight and Applejack made her stop and adopt a more serious expression back on her face. “Ahem, sorry… I just never heard of someone losing a fight by being tickled.”

“I didn’t lose.” Twilight felt the sting of her humiliating fall come roaring back. “But that isn’t important. I ended up having him pinned again and was about to put the collar on him when Fluttershy started to act strangely. She disagreed with me putting the collar on him, which I would have understood. And seeing that we kind of turned her living room into a battlefield, I would understand if she got as mad as she did with the snoring dragon. But she didn’t castigate or yell or even threaten me, she just stated that I was going to stop and that she wouldn’t let me hurt him. And even though she was civilized about it, the fact that she didn’t even get mad, but just coldly stated it like facts...I have never seen her like that before; he must have done something to her.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Rainbow spoke up. “You said that Fluttershy got angry, but didn’t raise her voice or explained what you did wrong?”

“Yes, I mean, that’s just not normal Fluttershy behaviour.” Twilight rubbed her left arm with her right hoof.

“Did she also extend her wings out to their full wingspan and move about to make sure she was between you and the creature, and did her voice become hard like a rock?” Rainbow asked, turning her head to the side inquisitively.

“Yes, how did you know?” Twilight looked up with a surprised expression aimed at Rainbow Dash. She remembered saying that Fluttershy’s anger had been strange, but she couldn’t remember if she had said anything about Fluttershy placing herself between them.

Rainbow Dash got up and put on her wool cap. “Stay here...there’s something I need to be sure of.” Not looking back at her friends, she opened the kitchen door and flew away, leaving Applejack and Twilight looking surprised.

“What just happened?” Twilight asked as her gaze went from the open door to Applejack.

“I don’t know, Twi, but knowing Rainbow Dash, the situation either just got less or more complicated,” Applejack said as she got up and closed the door.