Chapters Space was far from empty. Everything from microscopic dust particles to super-massive black holes drifted through the silent void, often at a relatively mind-numbing speed. Everything about the universe was in motion, a grand ballet that was just as beautiful as it was profound. Galaxies filled the unreal volume that was reality, tiny specks of light and warmth that would have made the otherwise bleak cosmos impossible to observe. Each of these little lights contained billions and billions of stars, the massive engines of hydrogen that provided the foundation for systems of smaller celestial bodies.
Many of these wondrous fusion reactors were naked, unaccompanied by satellites save a few barren rocks. Some of them were lucky enough to dance and share a tandem existence with another star, swaying and orbiting one another as they floated through the cold expanses of eternity. Others still were surrounded by a big, happy family of smaller bodies. Star systems, so aptly named by their observers, were centered around one of these massive balls of plasma that were so wondrous and powerful. Planets, asteroids, comets, everything that existed under the sun could be found relatively near a star that owned a system. Everything was relatively close when compared to the vastness of everything that wasn't currently being observed.
The planets orbiting these family-loving stars were often boring, barren, and blasted beyond beauty by belligerent brothers known as meteors, so jealous they were by their larger siblings' constant grace of attention from their affectionate plasma reactor. Some escaped the bullying by means of an atmosphere, a safety blanket of gasses that slowed and punished the approaching annoyances with fire hot enough to reduce stone of molten slag. Nitrogen, oxygen, helium, methane, and even the precious hydrogen of their celestial parents comprised the wonderful comforters. It was because of these powerful shields, with a little help from the polar nature of magnetic metals, that what was arguably the most amazing thing found in the universe to flourish. That thing, so often taken for granted, was life.
Varied and ever-changing, life itself was the universe in miniature. From tiny amoebas, which formed partnerships and began grouping together, taking on more specialized roles as their existences intertwined, adapted and grew into far larger and more-noticeable shapes. The genetic material that was so precious and needed for each of these miraculous little blobs was slightly unstable, made even more prone to damage as the forming organisms began to rely on oxygen as a means for energy production. As free radicals collided with long strands of genes, mutation took place. Many of these quirks were harmful, still others had no effect, but every now and then, the right conditions would result in a small change that improved an organism's chance at survival.
Those lucky little lives that lived on lucky worlds that orbited lucky stars were practically cradled by their loving homes, barring the occasional tantrum and meteoric bully that made it through the blanketing atmosphere. On the opposite side of that coin lived the sad, hopeless bits of life that clung to drifting bits of space junk. Anaerobic protists and bacteria, prions, viruses, and other scum of creation that either lost their original planets or never had them, called the drifting garbage piles home.
Packed in the ice of a comet was a bit of dust, older than some of the planets it passed while riding its frozen steed. Within the tiny speck lay a single cell, a unique organism that had traversed the vastness of all that was. It quite possibly the last of its kind, from a corner of its galaxy forgotten to times and the cold expanses of truth. Just as it had been lucky enough to be frozen at the time of its home's destruction, and subsequently survived its frost-bound prison's transformation into a dazzling ball of crystal that soared through eternity. The luckiest of the unlucky, as it had always been.
Traveling quickly, too fast for most living things to easily track at close range, the fragment of a destroyed world collided with another chunk of rock, roughly eighteen inches across. The two bodies were heading in opposite directions, and the glancing blow sheared off a few tons of rock and ice. It was by either the best or worst of luck that a single speck of dust was within that ice, just as it had been for eons. The rubble drifted in random directions; much of it flew into a nearby asteroid belt, along a small tendril of stones that passed perilously close to a small planet. It was one of the lucky planets that contained life, and had for billions of years.
An example of that life was pointing its purple eyes to the debris field a particular shard of ice unwillingly joined.
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“Spike, hurry up! It's almost time!” Twilight Sparkle shouted to her assistant. The purple unicorn looked at the star-filled sky in wonder, partly pondering the vastness even her knowledge could only hint at. All of the mystery in the universe, and her study of friendship only allotted her a certain amount of free time, so long as she kept to her schedule.
“Coming!” the little dragon replied as his tiny, clawed feet patted up the stairs to the balcony. Spike relished moment like these. Watching the heavens with his adoptive older sister had been something they did whenever Twilight had a problem she couldn't figure out; the two would sit together under the stars, and almost like the magic the unicorn so often worked, the answer would appear. Tonight was special, something that neither of them had ever seen. The Odysseus Comet would pass Equus very soon, closely followed by a small meteor shower. It seemed Luna was doing her best to get back in the groove of things. “I just had to make the popcorn.”
“We should still have a few seconds, come on.” Twilight barely had time to finish before the Odysseus began its arc across the sky. The blue-tailed ball of ice was followed near-instantly by almost a dozen streaks of light. Like mayflies, the small bodies burned away quickly, their trails dimming before being replaced by newer, brighter flashes. White-orange lines striped the night sky, some lasting longer than others, a hoofful even collided with one another, creating dazzling fireworks that lasted but a moment. “Look at that one!”
A large, bluish trail dashed across the heavens, before exploding brilliantly in a shower of bright sparks. It had hit nothing that could be seen by the naked eye, but a near-deafening boom echoed across Ponyville. Twilight heard rattling window shutters and shouting ponies. A small meteor shard smashed through a door across the street, swiftly mirrored by a nearby fountain's destruction.
“Twilight, we need to get inside!” Spike hadn't even finished before his surrogate sister forced him indoors. Just as they hit the wooden floor, everything seemed to calm. Spike's green eyes scanned the room for any sign of damage. There was thankfully nothing noteworthy out of place. Save for the sharp piece of iron that jutted from a wall, things were pretty normal. It wonder, the draconian neonate thought he saw the crystalline metal gleam in the library's dim light.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
Temperature? Acceptable.
Moisture? Optimal.
Salinity? Tolerable.
Nutritional requirements? Adequately met for growth.
Like a pre-flight checklist, the cell went through the motions of finding a suitable environment. There was no sense of time, no way for it to know that it had spent eons trapped in ice. It was, after all, a single unit of what was once a proud organism, and as such lacked any higher means of input. While it could not think, it knew the best way to go about acclimating itself to its new surroundings. As it had once been a single cell, it would repair would repair itself in the most efficient of ways. There were other cells around it; their membranes caught on the alien's dendrites as it drifted in the liquid. Like skilled predator, a tendril lashed out.
Unlike most unicellular organisms, the invader did not envelope its prey. It simply filtered the solids from its target and ignored the cytoplasm, but it took extra care when absorbing the strange cell's nucleus. When the dark ball of genetic information arrived in the foreign body, nothing met it with the intent to consume. A black, ovoid organelle gently brushed against the nuclear envelope. If one could place the egg-shaped micro-organ under an electron microscope, rows of razor-shape barbs would be very apparent. As a tiny incision was made, a single tendril snaked into the unraveled strands of nucleic acid. This was done as tenderly as possible, and may have been the nicest thing done by the ancient life form.
As the reader went about its task, others of its kind began their work on the other strange organelles. While the mitochondria and ribosomes were very similar to its own structures, the invader's simple programming was stumped at the function of the other, rippled structures it found. Though there was no concept of time, three hours passed as the alien organism reviewed its obtained sample. With the encoded, genetic information at the ready, it was a simple matter for the adaptable being to optimize its chances of survival in its new host. The spent and studied organelles were broken down for nutrients to fuel the rapid changes that would soon occupy the invasive species. It had to perfectly blend into the other cells around it as it stuffed itself into the now-dead cell's place. Surface antigens altered to match the host tissue, rendering the parasite invisible to any immune response it had evolved to evade.
To any leukocytes prowling about, it appeared to just be another bit of eyelid undergoing oddly rapid mitosis.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
Nurse Redheart stood outside the hospital, vigilant for anypony who may have been harmed in the explosion. As much as she wished to head into the town proper, her duties kept her at the door. The pink-haired mare had actually seen the brilliant display that cause such an ear-shattering blast, the meteorite that exploded for unknown reasons. At any moment, the royal guard would arrive and provide order and an explanation. It was times like these the nurse was thankful for the other staff members and the tight-knit community they formed within the sanctuary. Redheart waved at a passing surgeon from her post, receiving a kind wave in return.
Already, two pegasi had been brought in for head injuries. One of them had been a guardspony on duty at the nearby armory. Cloudchaser had been the other pony carried to the hospital; a bit of meteoric iron had nearly put out her eye. Thankfully, there was a skilled surgeon on call who was quite capable of repairing the damage. If two ponies made the entirety of the night's casualty list, things were on the up and up.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
There was a thick bundle of some sort of fiber, different from the muscle it had burrowed into and replace nearby. Electricity flowed through the elongated cells, as well as chemical compounds that endlessly fired from one stalk to the body of another cell. The new prey must have been the host's means of communication within its body, an oddly centralized method, but a possibly effective one. If that was the only way signals could be interpreted, then the cables were to be avoided until assimilation was farther along. While linear progress had stopped because of this odd finding, liquid carrying tubes opened a gateway for colonization.
A single infiltrator latched onto a passing, disk-like, oxygen-rich body. This method was one of the many plans coded into the primordial organism, sapience would come later, when enough biological material was under its control. Like a creeping plague, the tentacled cell detached itself as it neared a highly vascular area. The primary infection site was quite a ways away, but it would be easy to grow within the nutrient-rich environment. This new region was practically flooded by some sort of new chemicals, too complex to serve no purpose.
In a mechanical way, the alien parasite realized that if its host had a centralized nervous system, it only made sense for it to also have centralized genitalia and some form of symmetry. There was a huge amount of some unknown hormone, and preliminary analysis revealed it promoted cellular reproduction and growth. There were nerves here as well, but growing around them would be easy. In the ripe environment, the cell could divide every eighteen minutes, provided the abundant food supply and host bodies remained. If the spread to the genitals was somehow unsuccessful, many of its kind drifted through the transportation network, and would make landfall in several locations.
Muscle and most other soft tissues would be taken first, to keep the host still once the next part of assimilation began. After that, the nerves would be attacked. The process must have been painful to whatever had the misfortune of containing the parasite, and minimizing any possible vocalizations and physical cues that may show distress was necessary. Though it could not understand the concept of time, it would be one-hundred-sixty-eight hours until total control was achieved. Only then would taking the nervous system be viable.
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Caramel clutched his head, nursing a growing knot. The stallion was used to working nights, but his boss had suddenly grown a heart, and allowed him to clock out early. On his way home, the meteor started, and, naturally, the pony rested beneath a large tree to watch the spectacle. His saw a brilliant trail of blue, and the large spark as it exploded, even felt the shock in his bones. However, he did not expect a chunk of that space rock to land a few feet from him. The resulting impact sent dirt and rocks into the stallion's eyes; he barely had time to react before a large branch fell on his head.
Now Caramel had to deal with the inconveniences implicit in cranial trauma. The sturdy pony wobbled his way to the hospital, keeping one hoof on the knot as he went, giving him a hobbled, limping gait. He paused every fifty or so steps to rub his eyes in feeble, halfhearted attempts to clean them of the debris. It was more annoying than anything, hardly obscuring his vision, but the tears the dirt caused stung ore than the gritty feeling it already provided. The hospital, which was little more than a large clinic, was barely more than a mile from him.
The distance would have been easier to traverse had Caramel not been on three legs, though it wouldn't have taken more then fifteen minutes if he didn't stop to rub his eyes so often. He didn't notice Nurse Redheart until he had nearly reached the doors; he was too focused on his minor annoyances to care about the important things. The amber stallion was still thankful for the prompt attention, though he could have done without the gasp attendant.
Really, since when was a bleeding gash on one's head such a big deal?
Its host had cancer. Very early, only a few uncontrolled cells, but still there. The invader did not replace these, their damaged genes and uselessness prompted only consumption. The malignant units were well imbedded in the soft tissue of what must have been the host's stomach, far enough from the surface to avoid detection. The fix was easy, a plan long encoded into the alien's very being. Quickly, the cells surrounded the tumor were assimilated, breaking the steady expansion other colonies employed in an attempt to prevent the disease from spreading. In much the same manner as the original invader learned to copy its host's antigens and avoid detection, it would purge the filth that dared threaten its new home.
Tendrils lashed out against the cancerous cells, piercing even the warped membranes with uncanny ease. Exposure to the unhealthy tissue's fluids was all it took to set off a chain reaction in the attacking cells. As soon as the malignant cytoplasm hit the aliens' membranes, apoptosis ensued. The invasive cells ruptured, spilling a substance that would have been toxic to unfamiliar cells. The host would be unaffected, but the parasite's fluids latched onto destructive tissue's surface, and began a chain reaction of suicide, a weapon of massive cell death. In the right dosage, that which kills, cures.
Meanwhile, near the host's genitals, a colony found something needed for further survival: a stem cell. The invader could not produce such cells on its own, and needed them to forge its own reproductive system. The unique body was not assimilated and replaced, so much as enslaved. Like the initial infection, a tendril pierced the cell's outer layer, but very gently injected a reader organelle into the unsuspecting builder. The black ovoid contained not just the tools to read the genes of its host, but also to write. Stealthily, the invasive body nestled against the nucleus, biding it's time until the stem cell's next division.
That patience was needed to combat such a glaring flaw, but reaching fully control was never an intended outcome for an infestation. Under normal circumstances, a host would be colonized by multiple invaders, which would than compete for resources. It was invariably fatal for the host body, often liquifying the soft tissues and leaving any skeleton covered in thick, flammable sludge. Only a rare minority ended up unopposed, reaching maturity in a matter of days or weeks, depending on the host's size and shape. Even then, it did not seek its own kind; the disguises were far too perfect to bother added such a ability to its arsenal.
As such, it did not mate for purposes of reproduction at any point in its life. Dietary needs and chromosome count nearly always prevented it from breeding with the species it mimicked. Spores had to be created from basic materials, although more spores could be released into the wind in hopes of landing on a suitable host. Pandemic levels were nearly impossible; spreading itself became more and more difficult with every generation, not including local the populace's attentions.
The stem cell's nuclear membrane disappeared; it was time to strike.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
Caramel was relieved to find he hadn't suffered a concussion, even if the stitches were annoying. Nurse Redheart had tended to him with all the professional graces one would expect from a healthcare provider; the businesslike mare had been so kind as to wash the stallion's eyes for him. Apparently, it had been a slow night.
“And you're sure you didn't ingest any of the meteorite, right?” The white pony had asked that question, in some form or another, at least eight time already, as though the answer would change. This was a formality, in case the head injury had fogged his memory.
“Yes, I'm positive I didn't eat some space rock.” Caramel was being civil, of course, as any stallion would. Still, the amber pony was of the opinion that attention to detail could sometimes obscure the bigger picture. No, he had not heard any ringing in his ears. No, he was not tired or groggy. No, he had no conditions which may be worsened by his recent blow to the head. Really, every trip to the clinic was the same as the last.
“I ask to rule out the possibility of you developing heavy metal poisoning.” Nurse Redheart gave Caramel a tired, understanding smile. Both of them were up later than they would have liked, and this meteor shower was developing into a rather large problem. In the time it took to treat the amber stallion, three more patients had arrived, sporting various injuries. It would greatly benefit the nurse's sanity to stay with Caramel for as long as possible. “Well, we're done, if you have no further complaints.”
@#@#@#@#@#@#
Twilight Sparkle looked over the meteoric iron with fascination. She had seen the element before, everypony had, but never shaped like this. Regular material crystallized when rapidly cooled; the faster the temperature drop, the finer the grain. The geometric patterns in the metal were simply fascinating, and reflected light in a multitude of ways whenever she changed her position. It must have melted and just as quickly frozen in the void of space to have looked so beautiful. Still, as much as it pained her, it was an obstruction protruding through the Golden Oaks Library's wall, and had to be removed.
The hunk of space metal slid from it's wooden hold almost too easily, hinting at a sharp edge. The shard was tapered at one end, finer than a needle, and probably thin enough to puncture whatever it touched. The unicorn gently set the large piece of extraterrestrial metal on the floor, ready to observe the specimen much more closely. The hunk was larger than Twilight, and half of it was actually stone of some sort. Part of the librarian's mind giddily pondered the possibility of the bit of iron being from some distant planet rather than some wandering meteor. The rock portion was actually fitted against the iron like a puzzle piece, hinting at a similar origin.
It snapped off without the unicorn doing anything, and broke in half when it collided with the wooden floor. While normally a cause for alarm, the rock proved to hold a wealth it hadn't hinted at before then. Glittering, neon blue crystals shimmered in the candlelight, almost possessing a light of their own.
“I want to eat them, but I don't.” Spike had an internal conflict over tasting the alien gems. On one claw, he would probably be the first dragon to ever consume something from space. However, it might turn him into a bodysnatcher like in that movie he and Twilight had seen last summer. Well, the alien in The Thingie had come in a spaceship, not a geode, so that gave him cause to grow slightly hungry at the tantalizing sight.
“Spike, we don't even know if these are toxic or not.” The purple unicorn cast a slightly annoyed look at her adoptive little brother. While it was unlikely, the possibility remained that the gems have been poisonous in some way or fashion. This was definitely within the realm of scholars, and most certainly something to be kept from baby dragons, regardless of their maturity. A gentle tap against her door drew Twilight's attention from the extraterrestrial geode.
“Twilight Sparkle, I need a word.” That was a voice she hadn't been expecting, and the lavender mare practically ran to make sure it was who she thought it was. Princess Luna stood in the doorway, flanked by four of her Nightguard. “I am pleased to see you are unharmed.”
“And you as well, Princ-... Luna.” Twilight stumbled for only a moment before she remembered the princess's preferences. The unicorn was met with a semi-stifled giggle from the ruler. The Element Bearer could not help but notice the alicorn's eyes lance to the space rock every chance she got. “Would you like to come in?”
“Ah, yes, thank you, Twilight. Though I trust you know why I'm here?” The princess gave her sister's apprentice a teasing, amused look. While still serious when times called for it, Luna was an easygoing mare, and enjoyed more personal time than Celestia. This leisure gave rise to a growing penchant for pranks. However, she rarely enjoyed conversations with other ponies with whom she could discuss the night and astronomy.
“The explosion?” Twilight asked sheepishly, as though it was somehow her fault. Princess Luna solemnly nodded, already aware of the injuries caused by the event. There were thankfully no deaths, but quite a bit of property damage. “Was there something unusual about it? Did magic cause it?”
“No, it's just something that happens on occasion, though I won't hesitate to say it is most unusual. Normally, they don't contain crystals.” The alicorn motion with her head, pointing in the general direction of the split geode. Even Twilight was willing to believe the minerals had something strange about them, but there was nothing supernatural or fearsome that she could sense. “In fact, I can't recall a single occasion when a meteorite bore anything other than metal and stone.”
“Is there something wrong with them, then?” The crystals were in her home, so the unicorn had more than a right to know what sparked the diarch's curiosity. Normally, this wouldn't have rated a full royal inquiry, but here Princess Luna was, ready to go. “They're not radioactive, right?”
“No, but I’m not quite sure what they are.” On a whim, the Princess of Night went about fixing that little problem. Sensing no harm in it, she snapped the tip off one of the crystalline spires finding them oddly brittle. It was strange that the deposits could survive atmospheric impact, yet crumble at the touch. The blue stones were not minerals at all. In fact, they answered a question that had been raging for decades. There was the faintest flicker of something more than cold blankness, a feeling a magic wielder experienced when scanning an object from deep space. No, there was something almost magical about this, encoded with the most powerful reagent in all creation. “Twilight, I think you have just proven the existence of aliens.”
“I don't follow.” Twilight was justifiably stumped at the revelation. After all, it was a long jump from alien crystals to extraterrestrial life. Still, she supposed it was possible, on a microscopic scale, for living being to survive on distant worlds. Invading space monsters with ray guns was a bit of a stretch, but thankfully Princess Luna wasn't suggesting anything near something so ludicrous.
“Perhaps it would be better for you to see for yourself.” The blue alicorn held her fragment toward the purple unicorn, who had absolutely no idea what she should do. The only material she knew that would react in any noticeable way was blood, and only dragon's blood crystallized when it dry. Hesitantly, Twilight's magic took hold of the alien material, and felt the very same spark. Indeed, it contained the essence of life, though eons old and slightly stale from its containment. “I am considering using visceromancy to find what its owner saw in its final moments, though it would be more interesting to know how its blood ended up so far from home.”
“I almost ate blood? Ew! ” Spike was more than disgusted at the idea, though being a child, something else struck his mind. “I almost ate crystal alien blood; awesome!”
“Well, shall we, Twilight Sparkle?”
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Its host was sleeping, or possibly hibernating. Neural taps revealed diminished activity near every colony, though internal organs remained near full speed. The stem cell was fully serving the invader now, and lay dormant until needed. The host's digestive sac was close to full compliance, and the tubular organ that stretched from one end was next on the list. There were colonies of other microbes contained within the host, each with their own roles. There was likely a mutual advantage that rose from the partnership. This dual existence was a bit puzzling; the invader was designed to eliminate competition but there was nothing coded within its genes that specified proper use of a host's relations in the natural order.
Until a better conclusion could be drawn, the bacteria would live. Sapience would be required for such decision making, and it thankfully wouldn't take much more biomass. Once the facial and gastrointestinal colonies joined, there would be enough cells to form the network, and the other Colonies would be joined as they expanded. But the extra energy would require increases in consumption, which may draw attention to the invader. Programming indicated this was an acceptable risk, and the growth was allowed to continue.
Sapience came agonizingly slowly, only a few disjointed thoughts floating in a void of existence. The invader was steadily developing an image of the world around its host, helped in no small part by the heat-sensing pits now concealed along its host's nostrils. With an independent source of visual input, the alien could glean information without harming the host's brain until needed, and that would make a world of difference. Even if the anterior super-colony was now thinking, it would only communicate with its posterior half via chemical signals in the blood. Already, the growing intelligence had a plan for the cache of stem cells found near the host's genitals.
Heat signatures revealed the host lived with another of its kind, a quadruped it seemed. Either the new being was female or the host was, it was tough to tell with unknown biology and even reading the host's genes revealed nothing of its species's gender system. However, it was obvious it belonged to a species of placental, warm-blooded creature. Further data would be required before a conclusion could be made, but consensus predicted its host could mate, and pass on primary spores to its offspring, which would lay dormant until it contained enough biomass to achieve sapience. This served as a means of studying the effects of breeding on the host.
If sex should prove fatal, fluid transfer was almost certain, and a few cells could latch onto its partner and infect he or she then, and just cut out the middle spawn. First, it had to find out what hormone controlled mating desires.
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“Know this, Twilight Sparkle: there is no going back once we begin scrying. Of you have any objections, now would be the time to air them.” Princess Luna waited patiently for the unicorn to answer.
“I'm ready; let's find out what happened to get blood in a meteor.” Twilight nodded to the diarch, and readied her magic to begin the ritual. Visceromancy was the art of reading blood, and it would reveal the final few hours of a subject's life and their innermost thoughts during that time. It only worked on the dead, and was forbidden for obvious reasons. That being said, this was a case where the rules did not apply.
“Then let us begin.”
@#@#A Long Time Ago, on a Planet Far, Far Away... @#@#
Why had this happened? Why were the earthen walls to constricting? Why had the sky opened up and revealed horrors they could not have known? It started off with black ovals in the air, suspended below the clouds by unseen magics. For the first week, there had been no change in position or disposition; they merely hovered in place and did nothing else. The villagers remained wary, but eventually stopped paying them much mind, dismissing the shapes as a sign from the wind god. Looking back, that had been a mistake, but there hadn't been much they could have done.
Eight days into the strange visit, seams appeared on the bottom of the foreign objects. Snow fell that day, blanketing the ground in blinding whiteness. A thin layer of grey fell above that cold powder, but had gone unnoticed at first. An hour after the hatches opened, the burning began. Flesh melted from bone, eyes and lungs boiled within their cavities. None on the surface at the time had been spared, and it was only after the bodies melted into sludge that teams left in environment suits to search for survivors. A single female was found in her home on the village's far side, slightly wounded, but alive nonetheless.
That night, terrible monsters attacked the bunker housing the group of survivors. Tentacled, clawed, winged beasts of the most horrible nightmares crawled from beneath the skeletal remains of their fallen kin. Patches of skin could be identified as the fallen's, but mangled and twisted into something awful and predatory. The subterranean resistance held out for three days of constant assault before buckling. Now, only a male laborer and the injured female remained, sealed away by stone. Neither of them had been harmed by the monsters, and had been so lucky.
All of that led to the current scene. The world was foggy, though the female's figure could still be seen. She came in close, her face smeared with cerulean, alien blood. Her eyes were strange now, glassy and resembling an octopus's. Little black dots surrounded the optic sensors, adding to the appearance. She smiled, revealing rows of razor-sharp fangs she had hidden for so long. She had been one of the monsters the entire time, and had tricked all of them. Now, all the survivor could do was lay down and die, having failed to defeat an enemy that hid in dust.
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“If its blood was preserved, you don't think one of the monsters could have ridden the meteor, right?” Twilight looked at the alicorn for a sign of mercy, but there was none to be had. A full-sized alien seemed farfetched, even for the town of Ponyville, but a microbe may have survived. If so, anypony could have been infected, of maybe everypony was going to liquify and make way for invading monsters.
“It is too soon to draw conclusions, but the town will be sealed under a dome until we can determine there is no threat.” Luna had thought changelings were bad, using magic and feeding on love. This... thing could conceal itself perfectly, biologically, and had only eat normally so survive. If it could spread, and it possibly had the ability, all of Equus was in danger. How long until it revealed itself, if it existed at all? “I shall oversee the shield personally, so there will be nothing to fear.”
“I... I understand, Luna, and I trust your judgment.” Twilight looked at the floor, pondering her next words carefully. The unicorn thought not of herself, but of her friends in town, and how they might be harmed if something like that were to come about. “I only have one thing to ask of you first.”
“Anything, you have but to name it.” Luna looked at the Element expectantly, fearing something world-changing would issue from the mare's mouth. She proved to be horribly correct in that regard.
“Promise me we won't end up like them.” Twilight had caught the diarch in a perilous predicament. If the princess promised, she would be held accountable for every drop of blood spilled, every ounce of torment suffered, if the worst case scenario came to pass.
“I can make no such promise,” she said, hoping to at least come back strong. “But I will promise that nothing will stop me from doing my best to protect this town and everypony here.”
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Finding the key hormone was simplicity itself, and the stress of reproduction was already evident. Increased pulse, diverted flow of blood, increased nervousness and muscle tension. It cut the chemical production as quickly as it began, though it would still be a few minutes before the host would realize it. In the mean time, a very interesting development had presented itself. The host was vocalizing something, or possibly chewing something. Either way, there were perceivable patterns as nerves forced the converted facial muscles to act as though they were the original article.
After a few moments, the invader realized its host was indeed speaking to another of its kind, though it was alone at the moment. This was odd, to be sure, and there was no instinctive response or method of dealing with the new individual who escaped visual detection. Until the alien delved into its host's auditory canals and tapped into the nerves there, it was essentially deaf. It already controlled the face, scalp, external ears, and neck, meaning there was little room for expansion within going in or down. Colored vision would be more valuable than auditory input, but until then, the invader had to settle for the rumble of its host's vocal cords as it spoke to the invisible other
It was odd, the strange weaknesses it found within it new home. The skeletal system, mainly comprised of carbonated hydroxylapatite and cartilage, was laughably flimsy. It was flexible, to be sure, but wouldn't hold up to the larger-grain crystalline matrix the alien was programmed to produce. In its still-growing mind, the parasite almost found humor in the quirks of natural life. On a deep level, the invader knew it wasn't meant to exist, that it was far beyond what its creators had originally intended for it; the fearsome bioweapon of mass destruction capable of completely decimating entire worlds over a matter of days. It also knew of the revisions constantly being made to its kin, a higher efficiency spliced with each new infestation.
Infestation , such an odd term to place with its own kind. It almost felt like it was some kind of predator that crawled from the depths of murky water to eat all in its way. If the parasite could understand the concepts of irony and comedy, it would have laughed in its little mind. It wouldn't be long before the posterior end was fully aware, and joined with the front. True intelligence could be gained then, along with a very real possibility of finally hijacking the host's body. A slight rush of chemicals sent a thrill through the opportunistic organism, and it very briefly believed the feelings to be its own.
No, it had merely been its host leaving its domicile, and briefly slamming against another of its species. So strange, for the parasite to be alone; a conclusion drawn form the calm behavior of the natives around it. If it had been dropped from the lower atmosphere, there wouldn't be so many apathetic specimens walking about, and there were none of the chemical signals of dissolved multi-hosts floating in the air. Barring some new, slow-moving tactic employed by its creators, the parasite was quite possibly the only member of its species on the planet.
Well, it wouldn't be long until it could learn about the world around it and its host.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
Nurse Redheart apologized for bumping into the stallion; leaving her apartment was always a tad difficult, with her neighbor erratic schedules. Her roommate, a fellow nurse by the name of Tendercare, had left some time earlier to start her shift. The pink-haired mare herself had no such obligations for the day, and vowed to make the most of her time. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and Pinkie Pie had yet to throw pastries at anypony. It was a good day to be alive and perfectly healthy.
The caregiver oomph ed as she bumped into somepony, a very familiar somepony. Caramel, the amber stallion from the meteor shower accidents, had unintentionally collided with the off-white nurse.
“Well, hello again,” she said with a smile. It was a good day, and she was in a splendid mood, so why not be friendly? The kindness was returned, though amplified by gratitude “We really need to stop meeting like this?”
“You're telling me; I've bumped into at least three other ponies today.” The stallion chuckled at his own humor, though there was a hint of something else in his voice. That extra something must have been lost in translation somewhere across gender lines, but Redheart thought he looked a bit anxious. “So, I gotta take this chance to say thanks for patching me up.”
“Really, think nothing of it.” The healer smile at him, meaning to be kind rather than cold. She had unintentionally made it sound like a job, rather than something she enjoyed doing. In the most honest of truths, she loved working in the hospital, caring for others as ponies should. “I'm sure you'd do the same for me, were our places switched.”
“But I don't think I could work a stitching needle like you did, though.” Caramel tapped the still-sore area on his head. The gash had closed for the most part, though still remained red and inflamed. At what must have been a small rise in pain, the stallion paled a bit, and swallowed whatever negligible amount of saliva had built up during his little show. Body language allowed Nurse Redheart to determine his intentions of asking her something moments before he could speak the words. “Would mind grabbing some coffee with me, or maybe having lunch?”
“While unprofessional, I'd be delighted.” Worst case scenario, she reasoned, she would have a bad time and be no worse off than before. If things went well, she might be spending less time at home for a while. Still, as nervous as Caramel must have been to ask her, Redheart couldn't help but feel a slight flutter in her chest at the idea of the pseudo-date. “Shall we get going?”
“But of course.”
@#@#@#@#@#@#
Okay, what was going on? First the bump and slight nervousness, and now what must have been adrenaline flooded the host's system. The chemical brought on a similar response to the sex hormone flood from earlier in the day, though on a more controlled scale. Curiously, the host's immune response was taking a small dip in function, as was the digestive tract. Heart rate and respiration were elevated, but still within normal range. A single thought passed through the alien's primordial mind, and it was something it hadn't had to prepare for, or at least devoted minimal resources toward.
The host better not be mating.
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.”
It stared at the purple native through a glass wall. Pheromones indicated it was female and of suitable age for reproduction, not that it was interested in mating with the locals. Her mouth part moved and sound came out, but it did not understand her language. It would have, had the dark one not splattered the host's brain across a wall a few hours ago. The damage had taken long enough to heal for the alien to very much consider making improvements already. They would be internal, so as not to draw more attention, and it was thankful its captors provided consumables to hold it over.
For starters, the eyes were regrown to tolerate a larger range of light, thus allowing it to see partially into the infrared and ultraviolet spectra. Its pupils were now rectangular and parallel to the floor, making it the most externalized change made to the host's weak shell. The portions of the skull that had once been the braincase were reconstructed out of carbon nanotubes, woven into strands and braided into a shock-absorbent, anti-ballistic shell. Because it did not use a centralized nervous system, and had no real need for an extra cavity, it decided the blast-resistant pocket was a perfect place to hold the enslaved stem cells.
The female was chattering again, and it latched onto a single syllable in the entire flurry of noise: food. Whenever she mentioned this food , more consumables were brought to it and stuffed through a slot in the large window. It may have been mistaken, but it was at least a small portion of the native tongue, and fostering a belief that it was on their side would allow it to survive much longer. It wasn't with them, nor was it against them; it was entirely neutral unless provoked, if one did not count taking over its host.
But, on the subject of this food , the consumables its captor gifted, it would be very much a wonderful thing to understand what they said, even if it wouldn't let them know until it suited it.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
Twilight stared at the alien that was once Caramel. It looked much the same, save for the regenerated head and square pupils. It stared back, locking eyes with an almost robotic focus. Unlike her, it hadn't blinked with its eyelids, and instead used a nictitating membrane. Not only had it grown its skull from scratch, it had also changed the very shape of the eyes and wildly altered the equine form. Were it not for those two things, Twilight would have almost believed it to be any stallion, so long as it didn't try to speak.
The illusion was broken the moment Luna walked into the observation room, as one of its eyes moved to focus on her instead of Twilight. The princess had found somepony who had come into contact with the alien, though she seemed a bit nervous about the entire ordeal. Again, Twilight knew this pony, but only on a passing basis. Nurse Redheart was paler than usual, her face curling at the thing behind the glass.
“I see its head has grown back.” Luna looked at it with a mixture of disgust and morbid fascination. Her sister was on her way to pass judgment, though it seemed the alien was already on its way to the furnace. She took a small step back as she noticed its eyes darting between her and the other mares, separately.
“How long has he been like this?” Redheart asked, her voice quivering for both grief of what had happened, and fear of what might become of her. Her mind raced through every touch they shared in order to find when she may have been contaminated. She wore gloves for stitching his head, they hadn't shared drinks, they hadn't even shared a kiss when their semi-date ended.
“He was infected shortly after the meteor shower.” She was worried Twilight would say something like that. That left a number of chances for whatever contagion to spread to her. Had Caramel noticed at all, or did he find out only after it was too late?
“Is Caramel still... there? Like he's asleep and this thing just as control for now?” She asked the princess, hopeful that this wasn't permanent. She regretted that she couldn't help Caramel at the hospital, but maybe there was some way to fix this and save both their hides.
“Doubtful. The brain is where the mind rests, and it now exists as a scorch on the side of a market stall.”
@#@#@#@#@#@#
It decided it rather liked this body, even though it couldn't remember any of its previous ones, or even if it had any before this one. It was largely weak, yes, but it had significant amounts of biomass that were begging to be re-purposed into something greater. It couldn't do that under the watchful gaze of its captors, but it could easily mess with its new innards. The colonies of bacteria in its gut had been absorbed and recycled; there simply was no need for them. Speaking of modifications, the unseen other from earlier was outside the holding chamber.
She was easy to identify, as her voice had been one of the first things it had heard upon gaining the ability to interpret aural input. She was white and a bit smaller than the purple one. The host said something over and over again as it left her that afternoon, or perhaps the previous afternoon. Redheart, Redheart, Redheart. over and over again, until sleep finally overtook him. It was sure she was named Redheart, just as the purple one had been called Twilight, and the bigger one was Luna. The patterns were there, it just needed to identify them.
Redheart, the one the host wished to mate with, seemed a bit frantic, almost desperate, as though her survival was on the line. The only thing that warranted worry was discovery and lack of consumables. Did she need something to ingest? If so, why weren't the others providing one of their own with sustenance as they had done it, the obvious outsider and imposter? Natives were strange. It didn't care for her well-being or anything like that, it just wondered about the lack of a pattern in this. All life was patterns, so why not feeding habits?
It tapped a hoof against the glass window, which was meant, possibly, to reflect light back into the chamber and prevent it from seeing the other side. They neglected its ability to adapt, and it saw them perfectly clearly. They seemed a bit surprised, as their eyes widened and they stepped back slightly. It pointed as best it could to Redheart, tapped twice, and then pointed to the slot where the purple one had pushed consumables into the chamber.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
“What in the wide world of Equestria is it doing?” Twilight wasn't surprised it could see them; she had carried on what was essentially a staring contest with it for quite some time. The creature was simply fascinating. She had fed it three times, and it knew what her approach meant when she had a tray with her. She usually collected them after it was done eating, but she had alos wanted to see what it could do with it. “Does it want to... eat you?”
“Oh please don't let it!” The nurse almost yelled. She was terrified of the idea of being some snack for a monster from space. She didn't even want to have to look at it, and she wouldn't get a moment's peace until she was cleared of any chance of infection.
“It hardly has the chance to escape, and it must know that, so why bother with this?” Luna could make no sense of anything the alien did, but that was probably to be expected. She knew it could think, maybe even plan, but she had no idea if it had feelings or emotions, or even if it felt them the same way ponies did. But, like all living things, there must have been a reason for what it did, a method to its madness. “If it doesn't want to eat you, what could it connect between you and food?”
“Caramel and I had lunch together, but he was normal then.”
“Maybe it thinks differently than we do.” Twilight's idea was simple and brilliant. It may not have processed information the same as a pony. She knew it didn't feel pain, otherwise jumping through the window would have elicited some reaction, so what was one thing every living thing needed to take care of when pain wasn't an evolutionary necessity? “Nurse, it doesn't want to eat you; it thinks you're hungry because you're upset.”
“What?” To Redheart, Twilight was as well off speaking Gryphon.
“It doesn't feel pain, and it might not understand pony facial expressions and body language, only how we act on the whole. Any deviation in behavior is to meet a need, that's how nature works, so if it only understands hunger, or a lack of nutrition in its case, then it automatically associates hunger with deviation from the norm.” Twilight was impressed with herself for having figured it out, or at least that much. The scrying had shown it to be an artificial life form, so it was already at a disadvantage when it came to understanding the natural order of things.
“But that doesn't tell us why it cares if one of us is hungry or not.” Luna stared at the thing, and it stared back, almost expectantly. She didn't like it, not one bit, but she had to deal with it until her sister arrived and gave her two bits. “In the meantime, why don't you help yourself to some breakfast, Nurse?”
It noticed right away that something strange was happening outsides its chamber. Twilight had something with her, though it did not understand what it was. The object was brightly colored and made of some nonporous material. Three sides were open, revealing a section of stacked layers of unknown composition.
“Book,” she said, tapping the surface with a hoof. This book seemed unneeded to it, as it did not appear to be edible. Twilight opened the book , revealing a multitude of colorful patterns. Were they symbols of some sort, or perhaps a written language? At a glance, they seemed to be fanciful representations of the natives performing various tasks. She pulled one out to emphasize it. “Page”
She expected it to repeat, hoping it would memorize her language enough to speak properly. Two vocal patterns seemed like a small start in its opinion. The best way it could learn was listening to natural conversation, not brutishly memorizing phrase after phrase. Had they no understanding of natural learning, of its function? No, most likely they did not; none of them were melting, so there had been no cases of multiple infestations. It had already come to the conclusion it was alone, so there was no way the natives could understand even the simplest aspects of its life.
“Twilight Sparkle, what in Equestria do you think you're doing?” Luna was back, as it turned one eye to look fully at her. It had to stop blinking now, and instead switched to its nictitating membrane so it wouldn't have to break its line of sight. After all, Luna had been the one to destroy the host's brain, and it hardly wished for her to find the enslaved stem cells nestled in its cranium. It wished even less for her to destroy them.
“Luna, we know this thing is sapient; it already asked us to feed Nurse Redheart.” Twilight looked at Luna, though it kept an eye on both of them. It was what they kept calling it, not Caramel , as the host had been known as, but it . That did not seem like a name, as they also used it when referring to objects. “Teaching it to speak will allow us to learn from it, especially if it knows anything about who created it.”
“Yes, I suppose you're right. In any case, my sister shall be arriving shortly.” Luna nodded her head as she spoke the first part of that sentence. Yes seemed to mean agreement or affirmation, as did vertical waving of the head. Similarly, no seemed to mean the opposite, as did horizontal waving of the head. However, the two females seemed rather close, perhaps pack-mates or something along those lines, so it was possible that the terms and motions were only used during informal conversation. “So, has it learned anything?”
“This is only the first experiment, and I have only said book and page once each.” There were those two words again, the two she said while pointing at the object she held. This book was filled to the brim with numerous pages , each displaying a crude array of images and symbols. Some of them looked like stylized versions of the natives. “I don't think it learns that quickly; even foals take months to learn their first words.”
“But this is hardly a foal.” There was a new voice. It moved the eye it had on Twilight to look at the door, all while focusing on Luna to avoid any unfortunate maiming. The newcomer looked much like a larger Luna, albeit colored white with a polychromatic crest and tail. Like the others, this one's voice had a quality that it was rapidly associating with females, so it deduced her to be such, even if it could not detect her pheromones just yet. She observed it with a neutral look, or so the rather limited parts of Caramel's brain said.
“Princess Celestia!” Celestia must have been her name, as princess seemed to either be a clan identifier or title, if such thing existed. It was Twilight who called her such, and she embraced her, or, at least it thought they embraced. For all it knew, it could have been Celestia showing dominance.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
“I came as soon as my dear sister sent for me.” Celestia looked at it, and it looked back, now fully focused on her. If not for the independent eyes and extra eye membrane, not to mention their strange shape, it could have passed as a normal stallion, so long as nopony tried to speak to it. “I do hope I didn't keep our... guest waiting.”
“I'm not sure it has a concept of time, only when meals are supposed to arrive.” Celestia looked at Twilight then, unsure of what she meant. Certainly, being a living thing, the alien needed sustenance, and its pony body could likely digest anything a normal pony could, it seemed like an unwise move to feed it too much. Luna described the terrible mutations it developed in order to fight, or at last its species developed, as this one had shown no signs of any such weapons. “One full meal every six hours, on the dot.”
“We don't know where it packs all of it away, really. It doesn't seem to... produce waste.” At her sister's words, Celestia stepped closer to the thick, reinforced plexiglass that separated the alien from the rest of Equestria. She allowed a miniscule portion of her magic to ignite her horn as she prepared a simple reading spell. Seeing the magic, the alien jumped back, eyes darting around in search of cover. “I may be the cause of that.”
“Well, perhaps a more pleasant experience will make it less afraid.” Celestia was hoping so mostly for the safety of her subjects, but also because putting anything under undue distress was against everything she tried to be. It didn't its eyes off her as it stood against the back wall, but also didn't take a defensive stance. But, perhaps that was more because it wasn't sure how to defend its new body.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
It kept its eyes locked on Celestia as it took defensive measures. That horn glow was brighter than Twilight’s, and seemed much more offensive. Bits and pieces of Caramel's brain, what little had been assimilated, had shown the horned natives using such energies, so it was of little surprise. What was a surprise was the lack of anything being held by the light yellow aura, which meant a possible attack. Hopefully she would not attack the head; it could recover from everything except loss of possible reproduction. Even before she finished speaking to Luna, it took defensive measures.
Excess hydrogen and chlorine flooded its bloodstream as the lining of it arteries and veins secreted a thin layer of basic mucous, providing powerful protection against the acid. The organ that had once been the gallbladder began filling with a more concentrated hydrochloric acid, ready for any harm to the abdomen. Modified osteoblasts wove the carbon nanotubing around the medullary cavities as fast as their increased number could, which was laughably slow in comparison to the fast-working princess. Muscle fibers tightened and hardened to a form a basic defense against ballistics, but Caramel's laughable physique left much to be desired.
Even as the golden tendril phased through the plexiglass and snaked towards it, it did not flinch or close its eyes; it had enough nutrients to repair and improve any damaged sense organs.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
Celestia was taking the mind-reading spell slow, altering this and that to compensate for the unique physiology she was presented. It would be a challenge understanding it undoubtedly alien mind, but it would provide a new perspective if she proved it was not a threat to anypony. There was still the question of what to do about it in regards of poor Caramel, but that could wait until it was batter understood. If Luna was right, and fire was the only likely method of killing it, then it would put it through needless pain for an execution. Skilled hooves made for swift work, and she primed her magic to pry into the brain of the alien body-snatcher.
She missed its brain, but was searching firmly within the skull. There were remnant of Caramel's occipital lobe, as well as his entire cerebellum and medulla oblongata, but nothing alien about it. There was an inordinate amount of fluid, but that was to be expected of an empty cavity that once had cerebrospinal fluid flowing through it. If there was no brain, then how did it think? Was its nature so alien that it had no recognizable organs, or was it something altogether different? She searched along the spine, and found nothing but nerves. She tried the thoracic cavity, and found only what was expected.
This thing broke all the rules the equine body followed, so she had to think outside the box to find its intentions.
@#@#@#@#@#@#
It realized all too slowly that Celestia wasn't trying to hurt it. It didn't quite know what she planned, but she wasn't being noticeably hostile. It, lacking any ability to feel pain, felt only a probing sensation as her energy swished around inside its head, than down its spine and into its chest. She hadn't discovered its secret of thought, its method of sapience, and she wouldn't, so long as she kept assuming she needed to find an organ. That all changed when her probe took a turn and jabbed into the muscles of its neck.
It tingled a little.
The alien is a mystery to me, to us all. Despite being responsible for Caramel's death, it does not seem malicious, though it also had not shown itself to be benevolent. I've studied disease since I was a filly, and I know we would have all been infected, become like it, within two days or so after capturing it were it capable of spreading through the air. We are going on day three as of this writing. I'll admit that I am worried about this body-snatching thing; if I were to become a copy, a perfect copy of myself, would even I know it? Would Caramel, had Princess Luna not destroyed his brain? I suppose what has happened cannot be helped, even if we have been exposed. What it does now will decide its fate as Princess Celestia and Princess Luna pass their judgment upon it. - From the diary of Nurse Redheart
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Princess Celestia was rather confused by the alien. It didn't follow any of the rules of life that she was accustomed to; if anything, it seemed to directly oppose them whenever possible. No brain, no neural activity beyond the norm, and nothing to even suggest it was intelligent, yet there was that spark behind its eyes, that twinkle of light that screamed of sapience. There had to be something she could read from its mind; even the slightest bit of information would prove invaluable. After scanning its spinal cord and organs, she realized she was missing a piece of this puzzle, but she didn't know what it was. In annoyance and slight disappointment, she just scanned a hooffull of cells in its neck.
There, right there was that spark she had been looking for. Her mistake had been looking at the organs, not trying to read them like she would the brain. Still, this made no sense, not even a little. The small bunch of cells were part of a larger collective, and Celestia noticed thought-complexity increased proportionately as she widened her scanning area. At first, all she heard, or rather felt , was the desire to survive and adapt, as thought its only purpose was to accomplish those two directives until, like all life, it simply failed. It wasn't until she increased the size that she made her first real discovery: the alien had full control over every system in its body, down to the function of every individual tissue.
As Celestia focused on its entire body, she was assaulted by wave after wave of sensory feedback and mechanical thought. It didn't think in words or emotions, but rather in some odd sensation that crawled up and down her spine as she focused on it. Words, language, floated here and there, their meanings only a speculated by the alien mind. It knew food , book , page , yes , no and their names, but little else besides words commonly used in conversation, the sort without an observable meaning. It could speak, and it knew it could, but it chose not to for some reason.
What was most fascinating was not its intelligence, but rather how it seemed to go about using it. Most ponies think about their existence, their place in the universe, their individual identity. The alien possessed a sense of self, but did not seem to regard itself as an individual, or even care about anything beyond its immediate needs. It had no need for a role in life because it still followed the directives of adapt and survive , though much of what Celestia could read indicated it was curious and thirsted for information. Its thought process, what little was understandable, was strangely mathematical, ordered like a machine set about solving a puzzle.
That mechanical mind was one of the alien's stranger aspects. It lacked any concept of emotion, ambition, desire, morality, and empathy, or at least had not learned of such things. It wasn't a threat due to aggression, but because of its inability to understand how its actions applied to others. It could eat somepony's dog and be surprised she was mad at it, and then kill that pony for attacking it.
Celestia broke the spell for a moment, looking into the alien's eyes. They were the same color as Caramel's, but the rectangular pupils did not belong on a pony. They never left her, never blinked, never even used its nictitating membrane. It did not trust her; the very concept may have been as foreign as the alien was to Equestria.
“Learned anything, sister?” Luna asked, looking slightly worried, but also curious. Nothing about this thing was simple, and the threat it posed to the outside world was unknown. Was it contagious? Would it lash out even if it was perfectly safe and well fed? Was it the vanguard of an invasion?
“I learned that it knows more about us than we know of it.” Celestia looked at the alien posing as Caramel, and made a face like she was chewing something unpleasant, but didn't want to spit it out. The worried looks from her sister and her apprentice forced her to amend that statement. “Which, thankfully, means very little. It knows more of our language than it lets on, but is largely ignorant of everything else.”
“What about me?” Nurse Redheart asked as she entered the observation room. Her curiosity was natural; she had spent time with Caramel before he lost control, and the alien had been looking out for her well-being earlier.
“It knows Caramel was hoping for another date, at least. The bits of brain still floating around its skull might be influencing its opinion of you, but that's just a guess based on its previous behavior.”
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As it absorbed information, time, or at least the crude concept of time it was beginning to develop, seemed to slow. It felt restless, though it had no need for sleep; it felt anxious, thought it had more than enough nutrients stored to persist for weeks without having to cannibalize on its specialized biomass. It searched its large library of words, both defined and not, and attempted to locate a suitable term for this odd sensation. It founded one that would possibly suffice, though its meaning was unknown.
Twilight, a few hours earlier, while it had been in what must have appeared to be a state of dormancy, had uttered the word bored in a tone that hinted at unpleasantness. Bored sounded simple, much like the situation it found itself in. It resisted the whim to speak, though it gathered Celestia knew it could understand about ten percent of what they said, and that percentage was rapidly growing. It wished for something to occupy itself; there was no need for a sapient mind if there was nothing to do with it, nothing to learn. Perhaps it could occupy itself with learning the natives' written language?
It lied on the metal floor of its chamber, casually looking at the four natives gathered outside the mirror. There wasn't much to do other than conserve energy; modifications could wait until it had a while alone.
“It looks almost bored, sister.” Luna said that word, the word it used to describe its current state. It locked eyes with her, ears swiveling to focus on her voice. It needed a distraction, and she seemed to be as good as it had access to. “I wonder what it normally does for entertainment? I can't imagine it spends every day landing on unsuspecting worlds.”
“It probably doesn't, Luna.” Twilight looked at it curiously, but quickly returned her attention away form it. “Its species generates from spores; we don't even know if it's natural or artificial.”
“It is most likely artificial; hosts have the tendency to melt when under a shower of them, as we saw.” Luna looked to her sister, and nodded towards the door. The time for judgment was approaching, and the alien's fate would be decided then. Ponyville, under the current shielding spell, would not survive long, not with its roads and air traffic cut off as they were. “This leaves many things uncertain.”
“Perhaps Canterlot is the best place for it at the moment.” Celestia nodded her head in time with her wording, mulling over how things would develop there. The university had a larger facility and much more advance equipment. The most brilliant minds in Equestria studied and worked there, doctors and scientists who devoted their lives to solving the mysteries of the universe. “Yes, that sounds about right. I trust Luna and I can trust the two of you to keep an eye on our guest, yes?”
“Oh yes, of course,” Twilight replied looking bright-eyed and eager, despite needing sleep. She waved as the two alicorns left for the capital, even as the door closed behind them. Her expression slowly fell until she looked worried. “We have no idea how to take care of this thing overnight.”
“Don't you take care of Spike?” Redheart asked, knowing she had a small dragon living with her. If Twilight was capable of taking care of something so different from a pony, surely she should have some insight into the alien's unique needs. Maybe the nurse was grasping at straws.
“Oh! Thanks for reminding me! I'll be back in the morning!” Twilight didn't even give an explanation as she bolted form the room, and presumably the hospital. Nurse Redheart only had time to raise her hoof and begin to squeak a plea.
“Oh, please don't leave me alone with it!”