Sub Sole Nihil Novum Est

The host kept lifting a bowl of scalding, bitter liquid to its face, sipping the foul concoction at regular intervals. The invader was thoroughly confused by this, thinking it was perhaps a punitive ritual, given the pain it caused. Nevertheless, the adaptation to the mouth and throat were simple and completed in roughly half a minute. The other quadruped the host spoke to was seated across from it, though it would be roughly fifteen minutes before the taps could reach the host's auditory nerve. The neural probe was far from the only modification made to the host's body, but it was the only one so deep in its skull.

The genital colony joined and doubled the parasite's collective biomass, which translated to a similar increase in mental capacity. Thoughts became more direct, concrete; the world around the alien was more real than ever. Chemical receptors in the host's nose picked up and identified over eight-hundred scents, and it could roughly guess the number of other life forms in the area based solely on smell. At the moment, there were twenty other quadrupeds in the same room as the host, with one sitting across from it. The host and its fellow seemed to be conversing, and that same mating stress was constantly in effect.

“You know, I don't usually ask ponies out after I've only met them once.” The first noises filtered into the alien's mind. The sound was structured, flowing, and patterned in a way the invader was programmed to recognize as language. With the sample came other sounds, little tinks and taps of metal scraping metal, voices of other life forms, boiling liquid. “I really have no idea what I'm doing.”

“Well, you aren't exactly doing a bad job of things, just the odd hiccup of mentioning that.” So strange, the difference in that voice from the first one. Focusing on throat movements was unimportant now that it could hear, so the alien had no idea which sound belonged to its host. One of them was light, almost melodic, and the other was deeper, and rumbled like the host's four-chambered heart. “I'm actually fairly surprised you asked me here today.”

“Really?”

@#@#@#@#@#@#

Caramel felt awkward, like the walls were closing in on him. His heart thundered in this chest, he felt nauseated, and there was a terrible ringing in his ears. Redheart said she was enjoying their time out, but the amber stallion couldn't help but feel she was lying to protect his feelings. The nurse sat across from him, smiling as she sipped her coffee without a care in the world. Caramel did odd jobs around Ponyville, nothing like what the pink-haired was payed for, and it had an intimidating effect on him.

“Of course; you're acting much nicer than my last date.” The nurse's eyes locked on the stallion's energetic ears. The white mare seemed a bit amused by their fidgety behavior, but she found Caramel's apparent embarrassment endearing. His ears just kept flitting about, moving almost like a hummingbird's wings. “Are you always this jumpy, or is this all for me?”

“What?” Caramel clamped his hooves over his ears, face red enough to put a tomato to shame. He hadn't noticed the abnormal movements, but they may have been connected to the terrible ringing he heard for the past hour. Redheart giggled at the stallion's behavior, waving a hoof to sooth his nerves.

“Relax, I think it's cute.”

@#@#@#@#@#@#

The host began to calm as it returned to its domicile. Its roommate still wasn't home, and the prospective mate had returned to its own dwelling. The time to strike was rapidly approaching, and it would leave the host nothing more than a memory. Almost immediately after entering its home, the host climbed into its nest to sleep. There was still tension in the creature's systems, and the genital sub-colony was reporting an increase in blood and pressure. Still, after some time, the host entered a tenuous sleep.

Neurotransmitters flooded the body, natural sedatives and opiates potent enough to keep even the most stubborn of subject asleep. When saturation reached appropriate levels, the alien began its task. Tendrils lashed into neurons, hitting every nerve cell that bordered one of the parasite's own. Assimilation was not in a chain, but a massive rush of reproduction and destruction. Up and down he host's spine, several thousand cells were replaced within the first half hour. The biological weapon's new nerves doubled in the next interval, then doubled again and again.

The brain was interesting, and was attacked with tenderness. Its cells were patterned, containing the behaviors and culture needed to blend into the society the alien found itself invading. Care was needed for this, as was utmost attention to detail. Even something as inconsequential as sexual preference might prove to be what identified the imposter. The entire process might take twelve or so hours, but the body was the alien's, if one didn't count the brain. An image compounded with the thermal readings, color and light filtered through its eyes. Tentatively, the alien raised a hoof to its face.

Sadly, there were no characteristics it could use to describe the appendage. Words for color did not exist for the invader just yet. Lacking any fine motor control, the quadruped flopped out of bed and did its best to stand. One of its ears flicked towards a sound, like something hard hitting the door. The noise passed, leaving only silence.

@#@#@#@#@#@#

Twilight went from door to door asking if anypony had seen anything strange. Oddly, she received no answers from any of the apartment dwellers. Nopony had answered any of the doors in the building, which was unusual in itself. Most of the tenants were office day workers, and it wasn't a typical party night, so where were they? The lights were all off, but it was only just getting dark out. She paused, ears twitching at a faint, distant noise. It was a wet, choking gurgle, like two overgrown slugs squirming against each other.

Under full authority of the princess, Twilight followed the noise down the hall, passing the same doors she had knocked on mere moments earlier. The sounds seemed to originate from within an apartment with a door labeled Caramel. “If you're alright in there, just tell me!” She waited for a response, but was met only with the same choking noise as before, though it was quickly dying down. At that moment, panic spread through every nerve in her body. Was the tenant infected? Was he or she liquifying, transforming into a monster, or something infinitely more terrible?

“This is your last chance to speak up!”

@#@#@#@#@#@#

It cocked its head to the side as it stared at the door. It chose not to full rely on the host's brain for information gathering, but it now wished it had at least inquired about acceptable noise levels. It took only a second more to realize what was happening. There was a native outside the host's den, and had heard it. This meant discovery; discovery meant death; therefore, death was counter-intuitive to its purpose. It shambled to its legs, barely having time to balance before the door caved in. there was a purple... thing standing there and smoke cleared from the open aperture.

It bolted from the intruder, bounding through a closed window with the cacophonous shattering of glass. It was plenty dark to be lost, and it hardly needed it host's eyes to see. The glass, which it hadn't seen or even noticed until it landed, had cut it in a number of places, drawing forth small pools of red fluid that soaked its fur. Clotting agents were already at work plugging the leak as the alien noticed, barely paying any of its mind to the insignificant injuries. In the blackness of night, the pony that once was Caramel closed its eyes and allowed its heat pits to take over the function of sight until it became useless.

A piercing noise filtered through the air, causing more pain than should have been expected. It came to a halt between a few structures, now aware that it had no idea where it was supposed to go. The brain was still being taken, so its stored information was completely useless, as was every landmark and marker that it came across. It knew what cities looked like, how they were formatted and arranged, but this was far too small to be a city. It was more of a... it didn't have a word for that, yet. It heard the sound of something small snapping, and turned as any organism would. There was the purple native, next to a larger, darer native. There was also a glowing thing rapidly flying towards it.

That was the last thought it had as what was left of Caramel's brain exploded across the wall behind the infected stallion. It did not die, as some might have expected, for it was made to use a decentralized nervous system. However, most of its body functions were assimilated under the control of the brain, which was now disconnected, and while the parasite knew what was happening and that it shouldn't be happening at all, it could do nothing to stop its body from hitting the ground in convulsions.

It heard, in some semblance, the two natives as they approached slowly and cautiously. More joined them, but it could not see them, as its eyes had been mostly destroyed. Only its heat-sensitive organs surrounding what had been Caramel's nose allowed it to take in any sensory information that was not based in the brain. Its legs kicked and struggled against bonds that did not exist, but pain was a non-issue. It simply had no need for a sense to alert it when it was injured; it wasn't meant to even achieve thought. Yet here it was.

@#@#@#@#@#@#

“He did not melt as we saw in the blood scrying.” Luna looked at the mostly headless stallion in pity, gladly unaware of his – its – pain. She had a point, and it posed a bit of good news, however morbid it may have been to think of it as such. There was, perhaps, only the single alien that inhabited the former stallion, and no more. “Perhaps we can incinerate this one and be done with it?”

“I'm not sure that's a good idea, princess.” Twilight was just as uncertain about disposing of the alien as she was keeping it alive. It could easily turn lethal, develop those combat mutations, and turn on the townsponies, but it could also serve to educate them about life on other worlds. If it grew its head back, that is. “Princess, it knew it could escape through a window, something that doesn't exist in nature. It learns, it may even be intelligent; it is not our pace to decide if it should be killed or not.”

“I cannot believe you are even considering letting it live a moment more. You and I both saw what it did to the one that trusted its form, and now you wish for its release?”

“Not at all! I only ask that it be taken for study; it could easily yield answers we have long sought.” Twilight was, at heart, an academic mare. To her, the alien was not precious in a personal sense, but it held knowledge she greatly desired. “Perhaps we could seal it within a large terrarium or similar structure? If not here, then perhaps in Canterlot?”

“My sister would have to clear that, and even if she did, we would need somewhere to store this... thing until we can safely move it.” Luna was not at all for this, but she technically had no authority over anything that was not a pony or citizen of Equestria. The alien evaded both demographics with startling ease. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, but the risks were great in this case, and a number of ponies stood to lose their lives if it escaped or reproduced. It was a weapon that attacked whole worlds, that much had been determined from the scrying, and there was almost no way it evolved naturally. “The hospital should be able to make proper arrangements for an airtight containment unit until my sister can render judgment.”

“I'll head there straight off, Luna.” Twilight remember she did not like being called her title by friends.

“In the meantime, I shall see who has made close contact with this alien in the past forty-eight hours.”