Half an hour later the two humans and the ponies were sitting around a large table in Twilight's basement. Twilight sat at the head of the table with an annoyed look on her face. To her right sat all of her friends and to her left sat Zachary and Darren. Reluctantly, the ponies had returned Zachary's pack and weapons at Twilights insistance. His and Darren's packs were now laying on the floor beside them and their rifles were resting against the wall behind them.

Darren had used a stimpak to heal the cuts and scrapes along his arm and was currently holding an ice pack over his now blackened eye. He was using his good eye to glare murderously across the table at Rainbow Dash, who was glaring right back as she held her now bandaged foreleg with her good hoof. Darren had refused Twilight's request that he offer a stimpak to the colorful pegasus. He wasn't giving her anything until she apologized for ruining the negotiations he had been trying to open up, and she wasn't apologizing.

Zachary and Pinkie Pie were simply staring at each other, silently daring each other to make a move and Pinkie had the strangest smile on her face as she sat there... Despite the relative peace that Twilight had forced them all into, Zachary still didn't trust the pink mare not to pull something. Where the hell had she gotten those pies? What the hell did she put in them that had made one knock him out?! What flavor were they?! That last question was particularly bothering him for reasons he could not fathom. Zachary also didn't like the look in her eye. There was something off about her and he just couldn't put his finger on it. Sure the one called Applejack seemed to be stronger than the rest, two of them could fly, and it appeared that Twilight and Rarity held some form of magic, but Pinkie... She was the dangerous one, he just knew it. She was the one he was watching out for.

Dogmeat was sitting by the foot of the stairs that lead out of the basement. The dog was smart enough to realize that his master wasn't happy with him at the moment, and it had something to do with Dogmeat's new friends. So Dogmeat was keeping his distance from his master and his new friends until they settled down. Fluttershy sat at one end of the table, cowering between Applejack and Rarity. Spike, who had an ice pack strapped to the top of his head, was standing next to Twilight with a quill and some paper.

As they sat there, Zachary let his eyes wander away from Pinkie Pie for a moment, without turning his head, to take another look around the basement. It had been dark when he had first woken up and headed upstairs so he hadn't really seen much of it before now. Their table resided in the center of the room. Along one wall was a series of bookshelves. On the side of the room farthest from the stairs, there were three tables filled with microscopes, vials of mysterious liquids, and strange devices. On either end of the tables there were large piles of books and loose leaves of paper that appeared to have notes on them. The center table had several open crates sitting under it. From his seat, Zachary caught a glimpse of what was in the crates. It appeared to be piles of junk and... Was that a ten millimeter pistol poking out of the top of the pile?

Zachary snapped his attention back to Twilight with a new curiosity. She was glaring at the humans and the other ponies alike.

"Alright!", she finally said, her voice raised almost to a shout, "Is everyone calm now?! No one is going to try to kill each other? Good!" She glanced around the table at everyone gathered there, "Ok! Earlier you were all asking questions. Feel free to do so now, without any weapons or violence, and I will do my best to answer."

They were all quiet for a moment before Darren stopped glaring at Rainbow Dash and turned to Twilight with a scowl. He just stared at her for a moment and then looked around at the others before saying, "Well, I suppose that the most important question I have right now is, why did you bring us here?" Everyone looked at her expectantly. While they had all been patching each other up after their little skirmish, the other ponies had been shocked when Twilight had told them that she had brought Darren and Zachary there on purpose.

Twilight's look changed from one of anger to one of nervous aprehension. She glanced at her friends before replying. She appeared to be thinking hard and when she spoke she chose her words carefully.

"I brought you here because... Equestria needs you. I believe that there is a great danger hanging over the land and only you can help."

"Now wait just one minute!", Applejack shouted from her end of the table, "What do yall mean 'Danger hangin over Equestria'?!" Her outburst was echoed by the other mares at the table. They were all in various states of worry and confusion over Twilight's statement.

"What do you mean danger? And why do you need these two ruffians?" Rarity cut in with a gesture towards Darren and Zachary. Twilight hesitated before answering.

"I need them because they've dealt with the kind of trouble I'm expecting before. As for what that trouble is, I... I'm sorry but I can't tell you that just yet", she finally said.

"What do you mean you can't tell us?!" Rainbow Dash said forcefully, slamming her good hoof onto the table as she did so.

"I mean just that! I can't tell you just yet. None of you were supposed to know until I was sure that this was going to work. I didn't want to worry you all about something that you couldn't fix."

"Why wouldn't we be able to fix it?!", Rainbow continued, "We can-!"

"Please!", Twilight's shout interupted Rainbow Dash before she could go on, " Please, I... I just need you to trust me on this one. I will tell you all everything in due time, but for now... I ask that you all trust me when I say that I can't tell you everything just yet." She stopped and gave her friends a pleading look. Her friends looked at her for a moment and then to each other. A silent agreement seemed to pass between all of them.

Rainbow turned back to Twilight and said, "Alright. We'll trust you. But that doesn't mean we trust them!" She pointed at Darren accusingly. His only response was a single finger.

"Thank you.", Twilight said with a relieved sigh, "Thank you all. And now for a question of my own. How did you get into the library?! None of you were even supposed to be here today!", Twilight turned to Spike before she continued, "Somepony was supposed to make sure that the front door was locked and nopony came in today!"

Spike shrugged guiltily and said, "Sorry, Twilight, but we were all worried about you. You've been so busy lately with your mysterious project that you wouldn't tell any of us about that we figured you needed a break before you wore yourself out."

Applejack cut in, "So we decided we'd catch ya when you came out of the basement and make ya take a break."

"Me, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy got there first" Rarity stated, "and we were waiting for the others when your basement door slammed open and out he came!" She gestured to Zachary, who didn't react to her.

Pinkie decided to throw her two bits into the story as well, "And then Rarity was like, 'Who are you?!' And he was like, 'I'm insane!'", the pink mare was talking at hyper speeds and they only caught half of what she was saying, "And then Rarity tried to greet him and he said, 'No, stay back!', but Rarity kept walking towards him so he was like, 'I'm warning you!' and then-" She was silenced when she found Applejack's hoof in her mouth.

"Long story short, there was a tussel, I walked in on em and helped em deal with him, then yall popped in and you know the rest." She removed her hoof from Pinkie Pie's mouth and the pink mare pouted at her, dissapointed that she didn't get to tell the story.

"Well, at least now we know what you were working on I suppose", Rarity stated, "Finding these scruffy looking miscreants."

Darren turned his glare on her and scratched his beard, "Who's scruffy looking?" Rarity gave him a disgusted glance and continued talking to Twilight.

"Well, darling, if you're not going to tell us then we can't make you. I'm sure you'll tell us in your own time", she gave Twilight the most charming smile she could muster.

Twilight looked at her suspiciously before saying, "Thank you. Thank you all for your understanding. I promise, I'll explain everything as soon as I've gotten a few things cleared up. Now, are there any more questions you girls want to ask?" Fluttershy raised a hoof in the air and Twilight gestured for her to speak.

"Um, my question is for, um, Mr. Ross and Mr. Morris as well as you, Twilight" This drew Darren and Zachary's attention to the quiet pegasus. She wilted a bit under their gaze, hiding most of her face in her hair.

"Well?", Darren said quizzically, "What do you want to know?" Zachary remained quiet.

Fluttershy hesitated before trying to speak up again, "Well, um, I was just wondering, well, what I meant to ask was..."

When she remained quiet, Darren spoke up in a friendly tone, "Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you earlier. It was wrong of me. Now what would you like to know?" The other ponies looked at him with confusion. Had this creature, that had been shouting and glaring this whole time, just been polite to Fluttershy? Fluttershy actually seemed to perk up just a bit at his apology.

"Well, Mr. Ross, um, I was just wondering, what exactly are you?" she asked sweetly. Darren paused and Zachary looked on curiously.

"Well, we're humans...", he said. It came out almost like a question when he said it.

"And what, pray tell, is a human?", Rarity asked. Zachary rolled his eyes and Darren let out a sigh. This was going to take a while.