How to Train Your Alien 3

Thing spent the next week observing the ponies.  Every day she would fly out of the forest and observe some new aspect of pony society.  Since she had decided not to follow her predetermined path of world domination, she instead focused on understanding the creatures.  It was very tempting to simply assimilate one of the ponies and perhaps even take its place in society.  Her instinctual purpose and her newfound sense of morality warred against each other but her morals won out.  Assimilating an animal was one thing, it was just part of the natural order, but a sapient equine was different.  She could not forget the kindness that the butter pony had given her.  The thought of destroying the life of one of those ponies with assimilation was very unpleasant.  It would be very awkward to go against what her body was designed to do.  It felt almost unnatural, like a fish trying to live above water.  It was quite frustrating to say the least, but it wasn’t like she needed to utilize her flesh to the fullest extent.  The life of this planet was so much more primitive than herself.  Even with the pony’s magic, she didn’t feel too threatened and food was always within easy reach.

She eventually wanted to learn to live within pony society.  She felt out of her element, like a fish out of water.  No matter, she was adaptable after all.  It would require some preparation and tact.  If she couldn’t assimilate information the way she usually would due to her restrictive morals, then she would find another way.  However, for her plan to work she needed to learn to live like one of the ponies if there was any hope of learning to interact.

The question was how?

Thing continued to ponder this question as she flew out once again to visit the pony society.  She was starting to develop a routine.  However, this time she decided to explore a different part of town she did not usually visit.  As she flew through the air she saw something in the corner of her eye.  Immediately it caught her interest and she angled her wings to fly in its direction.  She was startled at the unexpected development.  It seemed to be a bipedal creature, a new species!  It walked among the ponies in the streets like it was part of the society.  It towered over the comparatively small ponies.  The creature was dressed with multicolored cloth but not quite as bright as the fur that the ponies sported.  Beneath the cloth was bare skin.  It was also carrying a basket, a sign of intelligence.  It was full of fruits and vegetables including apples.  Ah!  He had visited the farmer’s market.  Despite visiting this town and extensively exploring the forest, she had never seen any creature like it before!

She looked at this creature’s body structure.  She hadn’t seen any bipedal creatures in this world before.  It seemed that it was built for running, perhaps long distance judging by the shape of its legs.  Also, the creature’s head was large in comparison to its body, somewhat like how the ponies sported large skulls on their relatively petite bodies.  Fascinating!

Thing flew from rooftop to rooftop stalking the interesting creature.  Finally it stopped.  Thing took a closer look at the creature’s face.  Hmm, judging by the defined bones on its face, this creature was male.  This world seemed to be full of creatures that followed the male/female format.  It seemed that this one was no different.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metallic device.  A key.  It expertly manipulated the key with his hand to unlock the door.  Thing had seen ponies use their telekinesis or their mouths but never hands.  He quickly closed the door behind him and flipped a sign in the window.

She was just dying to learn more!  She had assumed that these ponies were the only sapient species, but she had just been proven wrong!  She flew up to the roof.  One thing she leaned was that every one of these structures that the ponies lived in had some sort of ventilation system.  There!  She landed on the chimney and stuck out her tongue.  It slipped out of her mouth like a worm and was inserted into the chimney.  Her sliver of flesh dropped down the vent and landed with a faint splat.  She concentrated and the wormy flesh began to condense together and an exoskeleton formed on the outside of the mutating organic matter with little legs forming on the outside.  Soon enough, she had successfully shapeshifted her detached tongue into a small spider.  Thing’s hivemind focused on the spider and it quickly skittered through the crack of the vent and crawled on the ceiling.  Her eight eyes quickly gave her a view of her surroundings.  Below her was a table.  The bipedal seemed to be preparing some sort of ointment made from herbs and other ingredients he had procured from the market.  Suddenly there was a jingle from the front door and a mint colored unicorn came right inside and shut the door behind her with her telekinesis.

The pony and bipedal began their verbal communication.  Oh, how she wished she could understand what they were saying!  Soon the pony laid down on the specially made table chair and the bipedal creature slathered his hands with the ointment.  The mint green unicorn relaxed and closed her eyes as the bipedal pushed his hands against the shoulders of this pony in a rhythmic motion, massaging the equine creature’s muscles.  A sigh of obvious pleasure escaped the mouth of the unicorn as the bipedal creature utilized his hands in a most amazing and effective way.  So, THIS was the creature’s specialization!  Thing realized with wonder.  It seemed that every creature had some sort of specialization if they wanted to be successful in the society  His specialization was muscle care and pleasure.  Thing did know how soreness and injury felt but never for long because she had the ability to rearrange her muscle’s structure, effectively healing herself faster than the soreness could come.  She could see, however, why this kind of stimulation would be beneficial for a creature with a less evolved and efficient body structure.

As she crawled back up the vent, she pondered the bipedal.  Well, he seemed to be different and he was able to integrate into pony society.  Perhaps under the right circumstances, ponies might accept her as well.  She needed to learn more about how this creature had integrated himself so well into the culture without even needing to form his flesh into a pony!  Thing continued to ponder as her spider body was snatched up and eaten by her cardinal body.

----

Thing continued to follow and stalk the bipedal creature around for days.  Her curiosity was piqued.  She utilized her small spider insect form to watch him inside his house and her cardinal body to follow him around.  She made herself a little spider web so that she didn't have to insert herself into his home every day and allowed her spider body to sustain itself by eating the insects she caught.  She was so entranced because there seemed to be so few sentient creatures compared to the thousands of animals in the everfree that showed no signs of higher cognitive ability.  She squirmed in excitement as she thought about it.  Her instinct to gather and absorb information from the indigenous species really perked up.  The desire seemed to well up inside her.  She just needed to examine this creature more closely, he was so interesting!

As Thing watched, she began to notice a pattern in the creature's activity.  Every three days he would walk into the Everfree forest and gather herbs that he would use to mix into his massage ointments.  He always went to a certain spot on top of a hill where the herbs grew in a patch below an oak tree.  It seemed that he took care of this patch of plants.  Pulling up the invading weeds, he seemed to have adopted the wild patch and nurtured it himself, making it more productive.  This isolated area would offer her the perfect opportunity to examine the flesh of this creature.  She would simply inject him with a tranquilizer and then probe his body with a few experiments.  With any luck, he wouldn't even remember anything.

Thing had begun to change her hunting methods, mostly due to her developing conscience and morals.  She would sneak up on an animal and grab them, curling her tentacles around their limbs and lifting them up to examine the animal.  She would usually fuse herself to the flesh of the animal's skull, mutating the cells and structure of the animal to allow her to touch her subject's brain, branching tiny tendrils between the sensitive brain folds and interface, fusing with the brain neurally.  This allowed her to read the mind of the animal and glean valuable information from their memories.  It was like surgery, and with her ability to manipulate things on a nanoscale level, she could easily manipulate and access thoughts from her subject's brain.

It was always an exhilarating experience to hold and examine these creatures.  Her body and identity were adapted to exploit and use information inside of the bodies of organic beings.  Whenever she seized an animal to examine, she tried to emulate the calming humming that the buttery pegasus had employed.  It seemed ridiculous for such a soft and melodic sound to emanate from an alien, amorphous, tentacular monster.  Because she could mutate her vocal cords, she could imitate almost any sound.  Alas, despite her humming sounding very similar to the sound she heard when she was held by the pegasus, she could not replicate the calming aura that the pegasus could produce.  However, the animals would always become still when she injected them with a tranquilizer.

Thing did need to eat and assimilate to sustain herself, however, in certain cases when she didn't need the energy, she would take pity on the animal.  For example, if the animal had babies that would die without the parent's support, she would spare the animal its life and instead perform the surgical mind reading rather than assimilation.  She would do the same for the bipedal creature.  He was rare, and more importantly, sentient.  It would be a shame to destroy the only surviving example in the wild.  Her tentacles were just itching to curl themselves around his limbs and feel his unique body structure for herself.  Such a rare creature was bound to have some very interesting traits.

Thing made some preparations and began to patiently wait for her opportunity.

--------

Anon had just finished breakfast.  He looked at his magically powered watch.  He had about two hours before his appointment with Lyra, just enough time to tend to his garden and pick up some fresh herbs.  The herbs were his secret ingredient, it made his massage ointments cause the ponies to really relax, allowing for a deeper massage experience.  That, and his soft, but dexterous human fingers, allowed him to run a very profitable and unique massage business.  In fact, he had a virtual monopoly.  When life gives you a one way interdimensional ticket to magical pony land, make lemonade.  Amirite?

He had Twilight to thank for that.  That petite purple wizard had somehow managed to pull him from his home dimension into this one.  A "magical accident" she said, Anon rolled his eyes.  It was too bad she couldn't "accident" his ass back to earth.  It wasn't so bad if he were to be honest with himself.  He didn't have many friends in this world due to his abrasive and sometimes antisocial attitude in addition to his intimidating size, but this pony world was very peaceful and quiet despite the occasional punctuations of crazy antics that Twilight's friends were up to.

Anon picked up his basket and headed for the door, thinking about the mint colored pony he was going to massage today with the herbs he picked.  She was quite the enthusiastic little unicorn.  He couldn't help but think that she had some sort of fetish for his hands.  Whatever, who was he to judge?  She was his biggest customer and he sure as shit had his own share of strange fetishes.  Anon shut and locked the door behind him.

----

Anon was always amazed at the quiet, pristine beauty of nature in this world.  He took a deep breath as he approached his secret patch of herbs at the top of a hill that overlooked the everfree forest.  Right on the edge of a cliff where it could get enough sunlight, was his patch of herbs.  Behind him was a lone oak tree and in front of him was a sea of trees, the ominous expanse of the forest stretching into the horizon.

Okay, first things first.  Time to pull the few weeds that had started to grow in his absence.  He scanned the patch for weeds and immediately bent down to pull them.  Just as he ducked he felt something touch the hairs on the back of his neck and an air current on his skin.  Anon automatically slapped the back of his neck, thinking that a mosquito had landed on him.  In his sudden and quick movement to kill the mosquito, his hand brushed against something smooth and fleshy.

Startled, Anon whipped his head to look behind him.  He saw a vine, hovering in mid air with a thin, pointy end dripping with some sort of clear liquid.  The vine was very long and seemed to be stretching towards him from the oak tree.  However, it was different, it had a brownish color and a shiny, fleshy texture of smooth, shiny skin.  What in the world was up with this vine?

With no warning, the vine lunged at him.  He dodged to the side, but the vine curled and flexed its- its- muscles?  Anon was distracted for a split second, as he watched the strange organic construct.  Assisted by a muscular flex, the vine curled towards him, flexibly stretching out to reach him.  He hopped backwards, dodging again-

Fuck.

Anon felt his stomach drop, his back foot stepped on thin air and he lost his balance, beginning to fall backwards.  The vine continued to stretch forward, this time with more urgency.  Anon had no choice but to reach towards the animated vine in hopes of preventing his fall from the cliff, it was too late.  The vine seemed to be desperately flexing and stretching itself towards him, but his fall had already begun and the strange vine was out of reach.