Chapter 2
"I've got good news." Twilight entered her throne room, where her friends, including Celestia, Luna and Cadance, and the three humans were waiting for her. "And I've got bad news."
"What's the proper order?" Bradford asked out of habit. After a rather short story of how Twilight got and lived on earth, she didn't mention any details, she left for her library and came back about ten minutes later. The group had been in silence ever since.
"I can send you back, but we'll have to wait at least a year." Twilight told them, placing herself on her throne. Her breaths were a little heavy.
"Are ya alright sugercube?" Applejack asked. Twilight waved off with her hoof. "Side effects of using Elyrium in order to get me a little strength boost in order to get back to Equestria. I'll be fine, but I think I'm going to sleep for a day or so, after I explained the entire situation."
Princess Celestia walked up to the lavender mare. "Perhaps you should rest. I'm sure we can wait another day for a full explanation. And perhaps we should let a doctor examine you."
"No, Elyrium is completely harmless to us ponies. As much as it gives me a power boost, it also exhausts me much faster."
"Which explains how you survived the incident with the Elyrium canisters." Dr. Vahlen said. Twilight nodded. "I started experimenting with Elyrium the first time we acquired some. I never needed much, so no one ever noticed and I made sure we would never run out. More than one time during the invasion I needed to hold up my experiments.
Anyways, the reason I can't send you back, look at this." Twilight's horn lit up and a second later something like a holographic screen appeared in front of the humans.
"Fascinating." Dr. Shen readjusted his glasses. A small blue spots appeared on some kind of violet grid. "This is Equis, the planet we're currently on." Next a bright yellow/orange ball appeared. "This is our sun." Waves of red and orange emitted from the holographic sun.
"Solar waves." Dr. Shen stated.
"I could ignore them thanks to the Elyrium. It's like I created an invisible tunnel with a forcefield around it from Earth to Equis." Another blue point appeared a little away. Between the two blue points a violet line appeared going straight through the solar waves. "Since I don't have any Elyrium here, the solar waves would simply crush through the tunnel and let it collapse completely." The waves wiped the violet line away.
"I've been researching our sun, moon, and the stars for quite some time until one of my experiments literally catapulted me to Earth. Our sun has a very particular cycle with its solar waves. During a particular time of the year they are very weak. Weak enough for me to just redo my experiment under controlled conditions and send you straight back to Earth. Hopefully without landing in the garden with a 5 year old girl playing inside of it."
The holographic screen turned off and Twilight closed her eyes, taking deep breaths. "Twilight!" her five friends and Spike ran over to her.
"Don't even think about it. He's my little brother." Twilight addressed Dr. Vahlen. Everyone turned towards her and saw she had been looking at Spike. "Whatever do you mean?"
"Come on doctor. Bradford himself called you the worst nightmare of an alien. We all know how much you have been looking forward into "interrogating" new aliens."
"What's this whole talk about aliens anyway?" Spike asked a little clueless. Princess Cadance walked up and levitated Twilight up. "I think I'll bring her into her bedroom. Guards, send a doctor. I don't know anything about this..."Elyrium", but we shouldn't take any risks."
"Isn't Elyrium not deadly?" Bradford asked. Vahlen nodded but added. "Unless it is in the form of liquid or gas. It kills a human within seconds after it entered the system." The Doctor explained. "There ARE exceptions, which is why I didn't suspect anything, when the Com-...she survived with none damage on her internal organs. Another worker survived with minimal damage."
"And the rest died." Dr. Shen cleaned his glasses.
It didn't exactly help anypony calming down.
XIII
"So let me get this straight, your Princess conducted an experiment with her magic?" Bradford asked pacing back and forth in the HUGE library. Shen and Vahlen were sitting on some chairs, while Celestia was standing in front of all of them, a calm expression on her face. "Then she turned herself into a human, infiltrated somehow the probably highest protected facility we have in order to get back?"
"Area 51 and later our HQ." Dr. Shen said. "It is ironic. X-COM was created to fight back aliens and yet we found ourselves with an alien leading us against the invasion. A pony of all things." he laughed wholeheartedly.
"I don't see what's so funny, Dr. Shen." Dr. Vahlen growled.
"Leave him alone doctor." Bradford told her. "As much as I hate to think about how an alien was capable of infiltrating us, I think I understand why she did this. We're not exactly friendly to anything unknown, are we?" he asked.
"And for a good reason." Dr. Vahlen muttered. Celestia's face never changed. "Twilight told me it would be a little hard to convince you that we are no thread to your kind. I can fully understand that you're frustrated because of her actions. I don't expect me to tell you your full story, but rest assured Twilight eventually will. Whatever happened in your world, it changed her."
Celestia turned her head to each of them. "I am sure you three need to settle everything in. I'll personally see to it that guest rooms will be prepared for you. You're free to explore the castle or Ponyville, although I advice you stay inside these halls for now. If you need anything just ask one of the guards. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
"What makes us sure you don't plan anything with us?" Bradford asked bluntly. Celestia's horn glowed up, making everyone immovable. "We already would have." Celestia replied before releasing them. "Rest assured you won't be harmed by any of my ponies unless one of you harms them of course."
Celestia turned around and left the library. Bradford turned around towards the two sitting humans. "So, looks like we're stuck here for a while. Any suggestions?"
"We should obviously try to find a way to contact earth, if not find a way back." Dr. Vahlen said.
"With what equipment? Your tablet?" Dr. Shen asked pointing at the thing she was holding. He stood up and walked towards the window. "Just look at the houses. It doesn't look to me like they're even using electricity."
"So what? We just wait and hope that one day she will send us home just like that?" the woman of the trio asked.
"What other choice do we have?" Dr. Shen asked. "We have one plasma pistol. Plus we don't know anything about the environment of this place. None of us has telepathic abilities and all of them who at least have a horn seem to have some."
"Magic." Bradford rolled his eyes. "It doesn't seem like we have another choice. She will probably be highly guarded, considering they referred to her as a princess. Even with our superior weapons, one gun is just one gun. We can't bluff our wait out of here either, since she knows our tactics all too well and what we're capable off. As much as I hate this decision, we have no other choice BUT to wait. Look, I hate being betrayed too, but right now we better play by the rules until we know more."
"So we just sit down and do nothing?" Dr. Vahlen asked.
"As I said, we have no other choice. We're outnumbered, have no means of contacting let alone going back to earth. She seemed pretty surprised on our appearance here, so I think it wasn't planned. And I highly doubt they belong to the same alien group we thought. It wouldn't make sense for them to help us win the war."
All of them were silent after this. Dr. Vahlen had to admit, all they really could do was wait and hope for the best. On this planet the humans were the aliens and considering they only had one plasma pistol, trying to survive in an unknown environment, while hiding from the locals would be pretty foolish.
"If you'd excuse me gentlemen, I think I'm going to look for a room got myself where I can hit my head over and over again until I wake up from this nightmare." Dr. Vahlen stood up from her chair and walked out of the library. "I guess that's one way of dealing with this situation." Bradford rubbed his chin.
Shen shook his head and walked over to the man. "And you? How do you plan on dealing with this situation?" the chef engineer asked.
"Is there anything you're referring to?" Bradford asked. Dr. Shen shook his head again. "Everyone one knows about the companionship between the two of you."
"I'll be fine doctor." The central officer replied. "I'm just keeping my cool and trying to cope with the fact that we're stuck on a planet with candy colored horses being the dominate race here. I also try to cope with the fact that our commander was one of them the entire time. How am I supposed to deal with this situation?"
Dr. Shen sighed. "I guess we all have to deal with it our own way. I for my part am interested in the structure of this place and the materials that were used to build it. Since we're stuck here for a year, if we're lucky, then we might as well use our time here in doing something."
Dr. Shen left Bradford in the library. "There isn't exactly anything I can do." Bradford said as he was left alone in the library. He looked around in the massive library. "She always has been a bookworm."
XIII
"Commander?"
"Hmm? Oh officer. Sorry, I guess I spaced out." the commander put the book she had been reading on the table.
"A book?" Bradford asked. "I've slowed down in my reading. I only managed to finish 20 books the past week." She pointed at a pile of books in a corner to which Bradford could only sweatdrop. There were at least 50 of them.
XIII
Meanwhile in Twilight's personal chambers, which have been kept clean and in top condition all these years, her friends were gathered around her sleeping figure on her bed. "Will she be alright?" Fluttershy asked.
The lead doctor pony out of a total group of twenty sighed. "We can't say for sure. This..."Elyrium" is completely new to us. So far it seems that Princess Twilight just exhausted her magic, but we can't say for sure until we have the results of the blood tests."
"Ah horsefeathers! Come on Twi! You wouldn't leave us hanging!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
Rarity put a comforting hoof on Rainbow's shoulder. "Don't worry darling. Twilight said she had been working with it and said it wasn't poisonous or something. I think she would know better than anypony else to use something dangerous, even if it means to come back to us."
Cadance walked closer to the bed. She nuzzled her sister in law on the cheek. "We're finished." The lead doctor pony said. "We'll keep you up to date. For now, we should let the princess rest."
"Can we stay here?" Pinkie asked, being unusually calm. The doctor pony nodded. "Yes, our magical scans showed it is safe to stay near her. Just don't put her under too much stress. I'm sorry princess, but the party will have to wait." The doctor addressed the party princess with a small smile.
The doctors all left the room, leaving the princesses (and prince Spike) on their own. Spike immediately climbed into Twilight's bed, wrapping his tiny arms around her. The ponies around the bed let out silent 'awwws'. In her sleep Twilight wrapped her forelegs around Spike and pressed him firmly against herself.
XIII
Despite Celestia's advice, Dr. Shen walked outside the castle, but stayed within castle grounds. He had seen the castle from outside before, but now he wanted to take a closer look on it.
"Fascinating." he mumbled. "A castle completely made out of crystal. Hmm, I wonder. Where did those ponies get all the materials from? Surely it can't be made completely out of crystal." he continued musing to himself as he wandered around.
"Hmm, most peculiar the tree shaped design. Ah, of course. Now it makes sense."
XIII
"Commander, Sergeant Brian volunteered for the mech-what is this?"
"Oh!" The commander looked up flustered. "Hehe, looks like you caught me doctor." On the desk of the commander were lying a bunch of drawings about ponies. There were also pegasi and unicorns and one which can only be described as a pegacorn.
"I didn't take you for...that kind of person." Most peculiar were the tattoos on the flanks of the ponies. "This war is driving me nuts to be honest. There's always a country which is complaining about this and that and on top of that, the council always seems to request missions, when half of my veterans are injured."
Dr. Shen suspected she remembered the mission where she had to send 4 rookies and only two veterans. Since it had been a one in a lifetime opportunity to storm the alien battle-ship, they had to take the chances.
[I had one mech-soldier, one assault seargent and four rookies available in that mission, but luckily I had some good weapons. I lost two rookies and my sergeant, almost my mech too.]
"I think when this is over I'll just take my salary and become cartoonist." She said taking out a picture of a castle tree. "But enough about that. You said Sergeant Brian wants to become one of our mech-soldiers? Tell him he has to wait. I want to keep the melt in case any repairs are necessary and aside from that, we simply don't have the budget to make another mech this month. I'm sorry."
"I understand. I'll write him down on the wait list then." Dr. Shen replied. "You know doctor, I can't help but wonder."
"About what?"
"Well, the future of this planet is on the line, yet the council only gives us a limited budget. What's more, I can't help but feel the aliens are holding back on us..."
XIII
"We never found out why." Dr. Shen said out loud, remembering the second part of their conversation.
"Are you Dr. Shen?"
The man turned around to see one of the guards in purple armor talking to him. "Yes? Can I help you somehow?"
"I am here to inform you that dinner will be served shortly. I also am here to escort you to the dining hall."
"Thank you very much. Shall we go?"