Chapter 2

Infestation and Rainbows

As the group neared Ponyville, Marisa noticed something. "What's with that symbol ya got on your flank?" Twilight looked back at her as if she had just asked a stupid question. She then suddenly realized that Sanae had mentioned that they had been transformed when they entered this world.

"It's called a Cutie Mark; everypony gets one when they find out what makes them special. You would see that you each probably have your own if looked under your dresses." The three guests from another world looked at each other, perplexed. None of them were comfortable with checking under their dresses for the time being.

They arrived at the outskirts of the town when they noticed something was off. "Is it always like this?" asked Marisa. There were swarms of bugs all over the town wreaking havoc. Ponies were running about left and right trying to get bugs off of them and find shelter. "I guess that was a dumb question."

"What in Equestria is going on?" Twilight said, astounded and appalled. The last time they had an infestation this bad was when the parasprites got into Ponyville and started multiplying like mad.

"Look up there!" Reimu shouted, gesturing towards a still pony hanging in midair. The group approached, making their way through the many bugs and screaming ponies. As they approached they could make out a deep blue coat, teal mane and tail, deep blue eyes, a Cutie Mark that was a mass of bugs, antenna, and firefly wings. "Why are you terrorizing these people, Wriggle?" asked Reimu rather casually.

"Because terrorizing people is fun," the fairly small-statured filly replied with a smirk. "I woke up not far from here. When I saw all these ponies, I couldn't help but have some fun."

"Your idea of fun is twisted," said Twilight with very much hostility in her voice.

"Firefly catching anyone?" Marisa asked, obviously not having picked up on the change in pronouns, or at least not caring about it.

"Don't make me come up there, Wriggle; we're guests in this world and I don't want any of you youkai messing around." Her words went unnoted by Wriggle who persisted in her command of the many legions of bugs throughout the town. Reimu then dug into one of the compartments in her dress and took out three red and white slips of paper. Twilight looked at her, confused. She proceeded to throw the three slips of paper, which, upon leaving her mouth, flattened perfectly and began moving at high speed toward Wriggle Nightbug.

Wriggle wasn't paying any attention and got slammed by the three amulets. She spun out until she could regain stability. She looked at Reimu with the anger of a child who had been told to stop playing when she just started having fun.

It was around that time that a faint voice could be heard from above the clouds, "INCOMING!" A multicolor blur burst through the clouds at high speed and rammed straight into Wriggle, knocking her out of the sky. The light blue coated, rainbow maned assailant was now visible on the ground on top of Wriggle, and looking rather unhappy with her to say the least. She looked as if she was going to strike Wriggle with one of her hooves, but she hesitated upon seeing Wriggle's childlike face.

"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight said, trying to snap her out of her rage.

"Ah, go ahead, it ain't like she's not used to getting beaten," Marisa chimed in.

"You aren't helping," Sanae said.

"I'm trying to help," Marisa retorted. The pegasus removed herself from Wriggle, much calmer now than mere moment ago. The swarms of insects were receding from the town.

"Is everypony okay?" Twilight asked all the ponies in the general area. It seemed as though no one was hurt, just a bit shaken up. Twilight let out a long sigh of relief. The pegasus she had called Rainbow Dash was looking somewhat ashamed that she had considered hitting such a little filly. "Rainbow, are you okay?"

She quickly snapped out of her moment of quiet shame. "Did you see the way I swooped in and saved the day? It was like-" she then began to recount the events that had just happened not a minute before with proud emphasis on how she "saved the day". She stopped and noticed the other three unfamiliar faces. "I haven't seen any of you around here before. Hi, my name's Rainbow Dash, the fastest flyer in all of Equestria!" she boasted to the newcomers.

"My name's Aya, the fastest flyer in all of Gensokyo!" claimed Marisa.

"Shut it, Marisa. I'm Reimu Hakurei and these two are Marisa Kirisame and Sanae Kochiya." Reimu gestured to each of them as she said their names. Dash looked confused until Sanae mentioned to her that Marisa was a compulsive liar who would tell anyone anything for virtually no reason.

"These three arrived in Equestria from another world. I was going to let them stay at the library and ask them about their world," Twilight explained to Dash. She then looked over at Wriggle who had just stood up after being downed a few minutes before. "I assume she's from your world also?" Twilight inquired. Reimu nodded.

"I want you and the other youkai to behave while we're here, you got that?" Reimu said to Wriggle in a powerful tone, her scarlet eyes showing no signs of concession. "If one of these ponies is missing by the end of this… 'trip,' I'll be spending some extra time youkai exterminating." Reimu was an overall lazy person, but she did have a good sense of right and wrong. She especially hated when selfish youkai went around doing harm to others.

Wriggle opened her wings and flew off, quite unhappy. No one was quite sure where she flew off to exactly, but it was away from Ponyville, and that was enough for now. Twilight watched the small, insect-winged pony as she flew. "Let's talk in the library. Rainbow Dash, would you like to join us?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah, I wanna know just what in the hay that thing was!" replied Rainbow with a mix of confusion and anger under her usual tone. The five of them headed to the library.

Upon entering the library, a small purple dragon with green spines greeted them only looking away from his sorting long enough to see Twilight enter first, "Hey Twilight, what's up?"

"We have guests, Spike. Come down and say hello," Twilight urged the little dragon. The others filed in behind her.

The three newcomers all spoke simultaneously:

"Who's this little guy?" Sanae said in an affectionate voice.

"Who's this little guy?" Reimu said, confused yet sounding uninterested in her own question.

"So many books," Marisa said in gluttonous awe.

The mixed reactions left Spike at a loss; he simply asked Twilight, "Uh, who are they?"

"They say that they just woke up not far from here, and they say that they're from a different world." Twilight seemed pleased with what was happening. She had obviously forgotten what had happened just minutes before. Spike didn't seem particularly impressed at the moment.

"Uh-huh, well I have a lot more work to do around here, so if you could take it in another room…." Twilight seemed unsure why he was acting that way.

"Whatta you think you're doing!" Rainbow Dash called out to Marisa who was using her telekinesis to start stuffing books in her dress and under her hat.

"Just browsing…." She looked back to see disapproving glares from everyone, including Reimu and Sanae.

"You realize you have no place to store the stuff you steal in this world, don't you?" Reimu pointed out. Marisa sighed and started replacing the books. She looked around and propped her broom, which she had been carrying on her back, next to the door.

"So just what was that thing out there anyway?" Rainbow Dash asked the visitors. "Because it looked like a little filly with bug wings controlling a huge swarm of bugs!"

Suddenly Spike was interested, "What now?"

"You didn't see the insects everywhere?" demanded Rainbow Dash.

"I was here in the library cleaning all day; I haven't had time to go out yet."

Sanae entered the conversation. "That was Wriggle Nightbug, a youkai from Gensokyo. She's a firefly that has lived for far longer than is natural and learned to control other bugs. At least, that's what I've heard." She paused as she gathered her thoughts, trying to think of what information would be most helpful to those from a world that wasn't like theirs. "Basically, youkai are supernatural creatures that are born in many different ways. One common way that a youkai is born is if an animal lives long enough and/or consumes enough—er… stuff. Some are born out of some emotion that a population is feeling, others born from desires; some can be manufactured like poltergeist. Some are born the old fashioned way, and some simply come into existence." Sanae reflected on her words for a moment.

Twilight spoke up, "So these, uh… youkai-things are 'supernatural'?"

"Basically, yes. I know it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to you, considering that you aren't around them every day like we are. Regardless of how this world functions, it appears that those of us from Gensokyo keep all the abilities we had there, even if they defy the physical and natural laws of this world." Sanae's exposition was easy enough to understand, but the three natives of this world were still a bit awestruck.

"Whatever, we need to go out and round up everyone from Gensokyo and make sure no troublesome youkai are being, well, troublesome," Reimu declared and began to make her way to the door.

"Not so fast!" Dash said as she blocked the door, "You three still haven't told us what you are." All three of them were quite surprised by this outburst. Marisa almost didn't have to think to come up with a lie for that, but something about the tension actually caused even her to think twice.

"I assure you, Ms. Rainbow Dash, that the three of us are humans—or rather, we were humans, now we're ponies, I guess. We are not youkai, to put it simply." Sanae was starting to confuse herself a little as she spoke.

Twilight then inquired, "How many of the people, other than yourselves, that were brought here aren't youkai?"

Reimu replied, "One. One other person out of the entirety of the massive crowd at my shrine was human."

"One and a half if you count Youmu," Marisa amended.

Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Spike had no better response than to stare blankly at them. "And how many people were at your shrine when this happened?" Twilight finally asked. Reimu tried to produce a number, but she simply couldn't; the crowd was simply too large to count.

"Not counting us: fifty-eight were in attendance." Everypony began to stare at Marisa. "What? You haven't learned by now I'm good with numbers?"

"FIFTY-EIGHT! ARE YOU SURE!" Twilight looked like she was about to have a brain aneurism.

"Calm down," Reimu began, "Most of them wouldn't dare harm a human; some would even flee at the sight of one. Some of them are dangerous though, they might see this as an opportunity to feast."

"F-feast on what?" asked Spike, who was almost sure he knew the answer.

"In this world, ponies." The three Ponyville residents were shocked, though not particularly surprised, by Reimu's reply. "That's why I insist we go out youkai exterminating for a bit."

"Gensokyo's definition of the term 'youkai exterminating' is basically going around and beating youkai in fights. They don't die and aren't even really hurt, but they get the idea; if the shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine is out 'exterminating,' best not to irritate her." Sanae was attempting to reassure them that no one was actually exterminating anything more than their desire to misbehave. It seemed to work for the most part.

"You've been awfully quiet since we got here, Marisa. Something the matter?" Reimu asked Marisa.

Marisa replied, "This atmosphere… it's too different; the weather doesn't even feel natural…. It's very strange, this place." She seemed genuinely shaken by the feeling, which was very unusual for Marisa. Something about getting that off her chest relieved her, and she seemed far more energetic suddenly. "Alright! Let's go and save the world! I ain't sitting around here while Reimu has all the fun!"

Marisa's outburst prompted Rainbow Dash to get a bit excited herself. "Well I'm not gonna sit back and watch you go around and save our world! I'm coming too!"

"Not so fast. Rainbow Dash, you saw what that—what was her name? Wriggle? You saw what Wriggle was capable of. Even if nopony was hurt, they could have been. I think we should leave this up to them." Twilight saw that Wriggle was careful to leave everypony unharmed back there. She was only trying to scare them, and that made Twilight uneasy; that someone wielding that much power could use it for something so childish.

"What the hay are you talking about? Don't you remember that I was the one who stopped her?"

"Even so, I think it's too dangerous; we should stay out of it."

"I remember you saying something like that before, and I remember not listening then either."

Marisa interrupted the conversation, "I like your attitude, Dash. Come on! The more the merrier."

The group continued to argue about what their next move should be. But as all of this exposition and arguing were happening, some weird stuff was happening at other locations throughout Equestria.