An Alien Walks Amongst Us - Chapter One

Chapter One – A Curious Introduction


	Quickly trotting through the streets with your bag, you set a fast pace towards the Everfree Forest.  The place is very dangerous, what with every single thing in there ready to do harm at a moment’s notice, but that’s not what has you worried.  No, what has you unprepared is the arrival of a real life alien.  You dreamt of this moment for ages, but to actually have it happen...

	Yes, you thought the same thing before whenever something strange happened or you misread situations, but this time you’re completely certain it’s an alien.  You hope the alien isn’t too dangerous.  It could presumably put up a good fight, but it’s no match for your magic.  At least, you hope.

	Looking at the path, you see you’re passing Fluttershy’s cottage now.  All of her animal friends are asleep at the moment, since it’s night.  You never did thank Flutters for her help; she was able to give you a much better understanding of how all kinds of animals work.  When you come back, you’d do just that… after the alien is under control.

	It doesn’t take long before you make it to the entrance of the forest; it’s practically screaming at you to turn back.  You’ve made many ventures through this forest, with and without any guidance.  You already know what to do when it came to traversing through the dangerous area.  With some small concentration, your horn begins to glow until a sharp light protrudes through the darkness, showing your path.

	With some more concentration, the light turns red. You slowly make your way into the trees.  No matter how many times you’ve been in this forest it always freaks you out.  How will the alien react to this new environment, probably vastly different from its own world?  For that matter, why did it choose to come here in the first place?

	You didn’t notice a ship or any other type of transportation.  Maybe it has a special type of technology for landing you haven’t seen in your dreams?  You just hope it isn’t getting eaten by a manticore or a hydra, or something even worse out here.

	What can be worse than that?  Well, what about a manticore teaming up with a hydra?  Or maybe the alien is bleeding, hurt from the landing which attracted a new form of land bear-sharks, to come out from the sea, to feast on its succulent flesh.  Your imagination is running wild with so many different things that could’ve happened to the creature.  You hurry your steps, trotting off through the trees in a panic.

	“Please don’t be hurt, please don’t be hurt, please don’t be hurt…”

	Finding a small clearing, you look up to the night sky, gazing at the stars.  They’re your only map to find where the creature landed.  You’re so glad Bon Bon and you love to look at the stars.  It sort of forced you to learn about them as well.  Interesting, how your world can use them as a temporary map for lost travelers.  Princess Luna set that up to allow her subjects another way to enjoy the night sky better.

	And there’s that cluster of stars near Ursa Minor, which points you to the anomaly.  Turning slightly right, you head straight off on your new path.  From where you saw the creature crash, it’s just outside the abandoned royal castle hidden in these forests.  You remember one time you had gone there in search of old tomes and clues on a theory about aliens.  That’s how you met the strange zebra out here.

	Thinking on her, you really hope she’s sleeping right now.  If she noticed the crash site and got there first, she’d officially have first dibs on what was there!  Not that there are any rules on first dibs.  It’s more of a courtesy thing you ponies did.  Would it be possible to talk her out of it and giving the alien over to you?  Not like she’d need the alien for anything.  You’ll probably have to trade something in return for it.  Maybe poison joke will work?

	Suddenly, you hear noises.  They sound very familiar, so you quickly teleport up into the trees, turning off your light spell to keep yourself from being noticed.  Sitting on a branch, you look up ahead where the noise came from.  It’s a manticore, walking in your direction.

	You’re not sure how many times you’ve seen one, but they’re frightening to look at.  Their mashed up body parts remind you of that dastardly draconequus Discord, which you always thought was really icky to look at.  A shudder ran up your body, thinking about these chimeras.

	You never want to meet something like Discord.  He’s way too chaotic… and especially creepy.  He’s also a jerk!  When he escaped a while back, he turned all the smoothies into chocolate milk!  Who does that?!  Smoothies are obviously superior to chocolate milk.

	Looking down at the manticore, you try your best not to get scared of the thing.  Come on, Lyra, you tell yourself, get a hold of yourself.  You’re Lyra, the alien investigator!  Lyra, the extraterrestrial master!  Foreign beings and entities, watch out for that mare!

	…Okay, it’s been five minutes and the darn thing’s standing underneath you.  It can’t smell or trace your presence.  You’re wearing some strong anti-smelling spray to detract that from happening.  There we go; it seems to be moving now

	…Wait, why’s it lying down?

	Oh darn it to Tartarus, it went to sleep!  Ooh, stupid manticore, go sleep somewhere else!

	You don’t have time for this; there are aliens to be found!  Rummaging through your bag quietly, you grab a very small ball with holes in it.  A sound cracker.  These balls are made to be very loud; all you need to do is to place the sound in there and done.  You put a very loud roar in it from a close encounter of a dragon you had once.

	Why’d you get this ball?  It was in case you ever needed a good distraction, plus it’s also fun to mess around with for pranks.  How’d you get the sound?  You thought there was an alien located inside a dragon's den.  Turned out to be dragon hatchlings, but why let a good opportunity go to waste?  So, you got a dragon roar in the process.  You ran for a day and a half after that, stupid dragons were very keen on wanting pony for supper.

	You’re glad dragons don’t only dine on meat, what with them eating gems. You’d be more wary of that baby dragon around the town if it wasn’t for that.  Activating the ball's magical reserves, you drop it right next to the manticore.  In a matter of seconds, a loud piercing dragon’s roar blasts out of the ball.  The manticore jumps up in fright, completely scared out of its wits.  Hovering in the air, the creepy looking chimera shoots off away from you in a random direction… along with an entire hoard of creatures following it.

	Huh, well at least there’s less to deal with in the forest now.  Teleporting back down off the tree, you pick up the ball before continuing on your way.  Frightening the manticore gives you a much needed boost of courage.  If you can handle a manticore, surely you can handle an alien, right?

	Thinking about the alien, you wonder just how to handle your first meeting with it.  Would using magic in its vicinity be a bad idea?  You don’t want to scare it.  The creature could be very temperamental if frightened or angered.  Oh, you can’t wait until you finally got to the alien!  You’re going to do so many things with it, like studying it or learning from it.  And of course, being its friend!

	You have to be getting close by now.  The smell of freshly turned dirt is heavy in the air.  You dim your light until it’s just a small glow, proceeding cautiously through the trees.  Off in the distance, you can barely see the abandoned castle over the trees.  See, you have to be close by now!  You’re feeling so darn excited right now.  How many ponies can say they met an alien?!

	Still, that little voice in the back of your head keeps speaking doubts in your mind.   ‘This isn’t an alien, it’s just a unicorn’.  ‘Stop believing this nonsense’.  ‘Grow up’.  ‘You should have stayed with Bonnie and ate pudding instead’.  You shove those thoughts back inside, not wanting to hear any doubts right now.

	Just ignore them Lyra, you’d always tell yourself.  You just have to believe really, reeeeeally hard.  And someday, your dreams would come true.  As you walk into a clearing, you see a small crater in the middle. You trot up to it and notice the dirt around it is fresh.  But there’s nothing in the crater.  Looking around for whatever left this behind, you see a small trail of dirt and flattened grass leading away.

	Okay, the alien had to have made this hole.  So, it’s probably up ahead.  Slowly following the trail, you can feel your heart thumping wildly.  Your breathing’s very erratic from your excitement.  Calm down Lyra, you probably look like a crazy mare during estrus right now.  That’ll frighten the alien; you wouldn’t want that, right?

	…

	Oh, why can’t you stop breathing so bucking hard!  Darn it, you’re just too excited right now to calm down.  Wait, breathing exercises!  Bonnie taught you them a long time ago.  They kept you from snapping at stupid ponies that act stupid.  Like Twilight.

	Breathe in…

	“Aaahhhh.”

	And out…

	“Ooohhh.”

	You always feel silly doing these, but they really help.  See, you’re calming down.  You continue walking, doing your breathing exercises on the move.  The trail you’re following leads to a small gathering of crooked trees, where you can see a figure lying.  Everything stops for you: your breathing, your mind, and everything else but your heart, which you can hear thumping hard in your ears.  Lying down in front of you is a human.  It’s a real life human, just like in your dreams!

	“Eeeeehhhh!” you squeal out to yourself.

	Alright, it hasn’t noticed you yet!  Quietly, you take off your bag and slowly dig into it.  Finding your camera, you turn off the flash and muffle the sound before taking some pictures.  Your hooves are so shaky, it makes it difficult to keep steady.  Happy with what you take, you place the camera beside the bag and set it to take more pictures every thirty seconds.  You then proceed to slowly walk up to it, making sure you’re in full view of the lens.

	The human here has a soft look to it.  It has no hair, other than on its head.  Getting closer, you can see its peachy skin where its clothing isn’t covering it.  Would your anatomy be similar to it's own?  Its front hooves revealed digits very similar to a minotaurs.  Paws, maybe?  It has five digits, each one a different size.

	The most disturbing part about the human is its face.  It looks eerily like your own, how expressional it is.  Its eyes glimmer in the little glow you have coming from your horn, as its mouth opens up to bre-

	Oh crud, it’s awake and looking at you right now!

	You stop moving towards the human, frozen in place.   The both of you stare at one another.  It looks to be inspecting you, trying to understand what manner of awesome is standing before it.  That’s what you thought, anyways.  The human doesn’t seem to react negatively from your presence.  Maybe there are other creatures like you on its home planet?  Or, it’s just stunned in silence from how awesome you are.

	…Okay, enough silly thoughts that are more than likely true.  Better try and make contact with it, let it know you mean no harm.  Clearing your throat, you think of what would be best to say in this situation.

	“Hello there.   I mean you no harm.  I come in peace.  Do you come in peace?  Do you like pudding?”

	The creature’s eyes widen, hearing your voice.  Oh no, you didn’t scare it did you?  Darn it Lyra, it probably doesn’t like pudding!  You should’ve asked if it likes smoothies!  Everypony likes those!  You can hear it speaking, but it comes out really weird.  Of course Lyra, don’t be stupid; it’s an alien, meaning alien things about it.  Was it so strange to have it speak an alien language?

	The creature's face continues looking at you before a smile starts forming on its face.  With a small flutter of its eyes, the alien slumps down.  Panicking, you inspect the body, making sure it isn’t dead.  No, nothing of the sort, it must’ve been too tired and fell asleep.  Looking at it, you notice there isn’t a single mark on it.  Just how did it survive that landing in the first place?

	Was it the alien’s technology?  Or is magic somehow involved?  Guess you’ll find out later, you think, walking backwards to your bag.  It might be a bad idea to turn away from it; you’re just playing it safe.  Making it to your pack, you see the camera took only three photos.  Darn it to Tartarus, you forgot to put more film in!

	Well, at least the photos aren’t too bad.  Some proof of its arrival will be good to have on file.  Putting everything back in your bag, you wonder what to do next.  You can’t have it stay out here.  It might damage itself or get eaten.  Or that bear-shark, wanting to feast on it, might come out here with a horde of hydras!

	Of course, you were planning on taking it back with you all along.  Levitating the creature’s a simple task.  It’s going to be difficult maneuvering through the trees and staying away from the creatures.  You can always run now that you got what you came for.  Packing up, you started you return to Ponyville with a large smile.  Maybe later, you can convince it to be friends with you?

	X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X ~ 30 Minutes Prior ~ X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

	“Uuuugggh…”

	Oh dear god, what the hell happened?  You’re currently lying face down on the ground.  You feel so damn tired, sleep sounds like a good idea.  Suddenly, you remember everything: Gleeks, the missile, and that strange light tunnel.  Your minds not so tired all of a suddenly.

	Turning over on your back, you notice you’re in a hole the size of your body.  There are trees all around you, stretching high into the sky.  A thought pops into your head.  Aren’t you supposed to be dead?

	Is this where dead people go?  This just doesn’t seem right, you still feel so alive.  Think on that later, I better move somewhere safe.  Maybe you can drag yourself to that town you saw before getting dumped here.  You attempt to stand up, but your body tells you it’s simply too tired.

	Fuck it, you’ll drag yourself there.  Rolling back on your stomach, you start wobbling your body about, dragging your arms up and over to move.  All of a sudden, a loud, piercing roar can be heard.  What the hell is that?!  The roar’s followed by a herd of strange looking animals running past you.

	Okay, you obviously need to rest if you just saw a chicken with a lizard body on it.  Dragging your body over to some trees, you turn yourself around, resting your back on it.  With how tired you are, it doesn’t take long for you to fall asleep.

	…

	It doesn’t feel like you were asleep very long when you woke up.  You’re hearing some strange clicking noises, followed by what sounds like steps.  You force your eyes open, trying to get focus back into them.

	What… the hell...

	Standing before you is a green looking… unicorn?  Yes, it’s a unicorn, colored different shades of green, with a light, red glow over its body.  It’s pretty to look at, you thought.  But… there re some things off on it.  For one, its face looks very human.  Also, aren’t unicorns supposed to be taller?  And why is it green, almost minty to you?  Maybe it’s a little child that wondered away from its mother.

	Wait, what are you thinking?  This isn’t real, maybe you haven’t died, you’re currently in a hospital bed, and this was all a dream?  Yeah, that makes the most sense to you right now.  The unicorn starts making these weird sounds, as if it’s trying to speak to you.  It sounds very lyrical to your ears.  Wish you can understand it.  You’re surprised, it almost feels like those stories you heard when you were just a kid.

	“I’m sorry imaginary unicorn, but I don’t understand you.  It was nice meeting you though, before I wake up.”

	You smile at the green unicorn.  You always wanted to see some magic from your childhood stories and adventures.  Strange, how your mind conjured it up a green unicorn.  Tiredness sweeps over your body, forcing your eyes shut.

	Guess it’s time to wake up from this interesting dream of yours.  Sort of wish you could have spoken to the minty unicorn and did something.  You quickly slump over, falling back to sleep with the sounds of hurried steps making their way to you.

	X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X ~ Present ~ X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

	You’re so glad it’s dark right now and everypony’s asleep.  You don’t want others to see you taking something from the forest.  They’d think you‘re bringing a dangerous creature from there, mistaking it for an alien.  It happens one time and nopony will forget it!  It’s not like you’d make that mistake twice!  Still, this has to be the greatest moment of your life.  Finally, an alien came and you can prove it right here!

	Better be safe and stay out of the lights, wouldn’t want it be seen you had something with you.  Looking back at the alien, you wonder what you’ll do first with it.  You needed to better understand what exactly the alien is, and if it’ll do any harm.  You doubt it will do harm.  Why would it come here to hurt you ponies?  Nope, it definitely came here to be friends!  And you’re going to be its first one.  Talking to it’s going to be very troublesome.  You wouldn’t be stupid and impatient enough to try and use a spell to dump the information inside his noggin.  You didn’t know what mental spelling would do to it.

	You can imagine Twilight doing just that.  For such a smart mare being trained by the princess herself, you’d think she’d have more sense than that.  You recall a time when she did just that, shoving info into a bear to get it to speak.  She said it was for study purposes.  The stupid bear went on a rampage, demanding honey for its rumbling tummy!  Thank goodness for Fluttershy.  She stalled it long enough for Twilight to get the info back out.  You’re definitely not letting this alien anywhere NEAR that crazy mare.

	It didn’t take long for you to get back home.  The lights are out inside your house.  Guess Bonnie must’ve gone to sleep.  Good, you wouldn’t want her seeing the alien just yet.  Opening the door to your house, you slowly walk inside.   It’s very difficult trying to avoid hitting the alien against your furniture and walls.  You’re sweating heavily from the effort of levitating it so long.

	“So… tired,” you pant out.  Where’s an energy smoothie when you need one?

	It took a few minutes, but you finally made your way up the stairs and into your room.  Now… how do you keep this thing secured for the time being?  Tying it up might be bad, it’ll probably be angry at you.  And that would mean less cooperation from the human.

	There’s nothing to really cage it with.  Oh, why didn’t you get that extra room built here like you planned?!  You could’ve just locked it in there!  Your ears droop on your head, looking around your room.  Gonna have to lock it in here for the night.  Then you could attempt to talk to it tomorrow when it wakes up.  You levitated the creature over to your bed, gently laying it down before letting your spell go.

	Walking to your window, you close and lock it up tight.   Looking around, you find your chair sitting over by your desk.  You levitate it over and snap the back off the chair and the legs as well.  Placing some magic into what’s left of your seat, you magically glue it into place.  You don’t want the alien being seen through the window.  You then start going around your room and levitate every single thing out of your room.

	You’ve seen the ingenuity of what humans are capable of in your dreams.  Why, it could probably use anything in here as a weapon!  Like your desk, or even your papers!  You don’t want to see your paper being weaponized for dangerous paper cuts of doom.  That’s a definite no-no for you.  Your room is now completely empty.  Well, except for the bed the alien’s on and your mirror.  That thing’s too large to move.  He’ll probably like preening over himself, you’ll keep that there.

	Uh-oh, you nearly forgot to check your attached bathroom.  You don’t want a weaponized toilet scrubby in his paws, do you?  Okay, NOW everything’s out.  You make sure to leave some toilet paper in the bathroom if it needs to use it.  Wait, can it poop?  Do humans poop?  Or do they use everything in their bodies?

	You never actually saw them do the dirty deed.  Eh, the worst that can happen is it uses the paper for something else, no big deal.  It’s much too soft to be weaponized.  You’ll be sure to ask its pooping habits later.  Hope Bon Bon doesn’t mind all your stuff being in the living room.  She’ll understand once you speak to her tomorrow.

	She is so going to eat her own words once you introduce the alien to her.  You giggle at the thought of her having to literally eat her own words.  You take one last look at the creature sleeping on your bed.  There are so many questions and things to do with it.  Oh, the princess needs to be informed!

	You close the door quietly before using magic to lock the door.  You also put a chair underneath the knob as well, just in case.  Walking downstairs, you sit down in the now-cluttered room before taking out a scroll.  You hope the princess doesn’t get upset on how early you’re sending this message.  Surely she'll understand the urgency of it.

	You quickly state how you found an alien, with some basic information, and a single photo.  Just as you’re about to shove it into your lantern, you stop.  What will the princess do with the alien?  Will she order it taken away?  Would they allow you to study it?   Would they force it into a zoo for everypony’s amusement?!

	Now you really don’t want to send the letter but… you have an obligation to do so.  You really hope they don’t take the human away.   After sending the letter, you throw yourself onto your couch.  It’s nearly sunrise; you better get some sleep so you can better deal with the alien refreshed.

	X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X ~ Canterlot ~ X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

	”Dearest sister, it is time for our night to be put down here, and arisen elsewhere.”

	"Indeed, Luna.  Shall we begin?”

	You are Princess Celestia.  And you are currently changing shifts with your sister, raising your sun for another bright and wonderful day.  It’s a slow process that takes over an hour, to properly mesh the night and day.  This allows your subject’s time to get used to the rising sun so they don't get uneasy.

	You don’t want your sun to come up without easing it in.  It doesn’t look as beautiful or as magnificent otherwise.  Plus, there are less scared subjects to worry over.  You tried it one time, raising it in the air as your sister took her moon down really quickly.  It scared the living daylights out of everypony in Equestria.  It was a good laugh for a while… but it had an unfortunate reaction.

	 It scared every one of them into a very unsatisfying submission.  Now everypony believes you and your sister are gods, and that it’s in your power to raise the sun, or keep it away.  Not true.  Surely a very, VERY large sum of unicorns and magical beings could raise and lower the sun… probably.

	Finally, the sun’s coming into view over your lands.  The two of you let the spell drop, allowing the sun and moon to slip into their places.

	"It is now time for our sleep sister, we wish th-”

	Without warning, a spell pops into your face, taking the form of a scroll.  You blink in confusion, staring at the floating paper.  Now who can be writing you so early?  Levitating the scroll over, you read over the message.  Luna seems interested at this, seeing as it doesn’t appear from one of the elements themselves.

	”What doth the message say?”

	“How… peculiar, it’s from Lyra.  She’s stating an alien race she’s naming ‘Human’ has been sighted from the forest outside Ponyville.  She claims to have captured it just a few hours ago...”

	You suddenly realize what this must be.  A small smile forms on your face.

	“Why, she thought up a scenario for us!”

	She frowns at you, clearly unsure of what you mean.  Of course, it can be her dislike of Lyra. Ever since Lyra showed your sister that aliens coming here is possible, Luna has disliked that mare.

	"And why would our subject feel a need to rudely send out this… scenario, so early to our sister?” Luna asked.

	“Don’t you remember the last letter she sent in? It addressed a possibility of what would happen if an alien made contact. And that's what she's doing now, don't you see? Lyra must be setting up a scenario based on my earlier reply, just to see if we would handle it properly."

	Most of Lyra’s talks about aliens didn’t sound normal.   You don’t see any real harm coming from her… strangeness.  Just so long as she keeps up with her weekly work reports.  Lyra’s work in foreign scenarios really do help you ponies, working with other kingdoms and creatures.  If only you had Lyra a few hundred years back...

	And her talk of aliens was so fascinating, so new, and so different you couldn’t help but agree reading them.  It helped the dreary days pass by, reading her interesting alien scenarios.  You look down at the scroll she just sent.  Lyra’s done small little challenges before.  They were simple things that were a nice distraction for you.   But reading the scroll… this seems so much bigger than her usual ‘alien’ scenarios.

	'So, our subject wishes to test us in these scenarios?"

	“It would seem so.  She even went out of her way to creating, or ‘taking’ a picture of it in the letter, see?”

	"Hmm, what a strange being; there are similarities to us ponies in its face.  Very… analogous, to those deceased species of apes long ago.  There’s something else that’s tugging at our memory, looking at this being…”

	“Well, there are some basic descriptions in the letter: it has soft skin, five digits with no claws, bipedal like a minotaur, completely clothed, doesn’t speak our language… and some other minor details.”

	"Our subject even timed this letter to appear before us both at the same time, as if to address us together.  This was very thought out indeed.  We must admit, this seems very entertaining.”

	The two of you trot out to your personal study with the letter, talking back and forth on the ‘situation’ that’s arrived in Ponyville.

	“So far, she has locked it away from anyone coming in contact with it,” you say to Luna, taking a seat at your table.  “She wishes to see what we should have her do.”

	"First order of business would be to watch it, making sure this creature is no harm to our subjects.”

	“That seems like a reasonable action.  We better make sure any necessities are included for this; should we provide bits to play along, or offer it first?"

	You’ll have to get approval for those bits.  Just to show you aren’t squandering the money about.  It shouldn’t be too difficult in obtaining them.  You doubt Lyra would even use the bits.  Not without reason, that is.  The thing in the picture looks expensive to make, with how realistic it looks.  She may need more materials to help with this scenario.

	"We should offer first, if our bits are needed at all.  A weekly report on daily events should be provided.”

	“Why, that’s such a good idea!  It would give us more to read and look at.”

	You and your sister spent the next hour talking to one another.  You’d have to thank Lyra later for this.  Luna… she still has trouble being around you, what with the whole Nightmare Moon fiasco.   You feel that this is just the thing to bring you two closer together.  A weekly talk about this scenario should be easy enough to manage into your schedules, so you can spend more time with her.  Hopefully, you can open her up a little more around you.

	“And now we send it,” you state, spelling the reply message to Lyra.  “Oh sister, I can’t wait for next week’s response!”

	"And we are just anxious as you are… sister.”

	X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X ~Ponyville~ X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

	Whoosh!

	You woke up at the sudden sound.  Oh no, did the human get out?!  It needs to be put back in your room!  Running around downstairs for the alien, you can’t seem to find the human anywhere.  Checking upstairs, you see the chair’s still in place.  So it’s still in the room then.  But what made that sound?

	You walk downstairs in confusion, wondering what woke you up from your dream.  It was a really cool dream too!  You turned into a kite, with Bon Bon holding the string attached to you.  And in the sky, all the clouds were made of Bonnie’s candies.  So she flew you around as you gobbled all the little pieces out of the sky.

	Walking back to the living room, you notice something is off.  There’s now a scroll by your lantern.  That wasn’t there before.  Levitating it over, you notice the princess's seal is on it.  She replied!  You quickly unfurl it, anxious to see what Princess Celestia said.  You read every word thoroughly, twice, three times… too many times reading it!  You can’t believe it.  They’re allowing you to keep the alien!

	You hug the scroll up to your chest, smiling.  You feel so darn happy right now, you can cry.  You’re going to do such a good job for the princess.  This is going to be such a great day for you!



	~End Chapter One~