"Come along Angel, it's time to go to the market!" Fluttershy's voice floated in from outside her cottage.
Angel raised his head up from where he had been sleeping, yawned, and stretched. He would have preferred to stay home and get his beauty sleep, but he didn't trust Fluttershy to buy the proper ingredients for his dinners, and so he was forced to accompany his yellow companion into town and supervise her purchases. He hopped off of the couch and out into the yard, where Fluttershy stood waiting with her wooden cart in tow. "All set?" Fluttershy asked.
Angel leaped into the cart with a single bound, and then nodded and pointed emphatically in the direction of town.
"All right. Off we go!" Fluttershy headed towards town with the cart, whose wheels squeaked so loudly that Angel was forced to stuff Fluttershy's tail into his ears to block the noise. Thankfully, the trip was short, and in no time at all, Fluttershy and Angel reached the Ponyville marketplace.
As Angel and Fluttershy began browsing the available wares, however, Angel felt something strange on the wind, something that made every strand of his fur stand on end. He could only describe it as a powerful aura emanating through the marketplace, very different from the ones given off by creatures like Discord or Princess Twilight. He knew the feeling well, just as he knew the danger it signaled to him and everypony around him.
Angel leaped up onto Fluttershy's back and began scanning the crowd, stretching his ears out to listen for any sound of danger. Nothing looked out of place, however, and the aura seemed to fade as Fluttershy continued walking. "Is everything alright?" Fluttershy asked.
After a few more scans of the area, Angel allowed himself to relax. It had been many years since he had last felt such an aura; perhaps he was mistaken. Still, it had felt so real...
"Let's start with these," Fluttershy said, jolting Angel back to his senses. He looked up to discover that Fluttershy had stopped in front of one cart displaying a large selection of carrots. "Do you see any you like?" she asked.
Angel gagged at the sight of the short, gnarled vegetables before him, and he cast a stern look at Fluttershy. She knew better than to waste his time with such garbage.
"I guess that's a no." Fluttershy looked around and spotted another display of carrots a few stalls down. "Maybe you'll like some of those."
'Those' turned out to be no more appetizing than the previous carrots, and the pair proceeded to spend the next fifteen minutes trying to find a carrot, any carrot at all, that met Angel's standards. Eventually, Angel realized that the lack of decent vegetables for his meals was an issue with the vendors and not Fluttershy, and he settled for some medium-sized, slightly-arced carrots from a stand in the northwest corner of the market.
As Fluttershy paid for the carrots, however, Angel felt the disturbing aura assault his mind once again. This time there was no mistaking the feeling—in fact, it seemed to be getting stronger with each passing moment. Whoever was giving off the aura was closing in, and fast. He leaped off of Fluttershy and began pulling on her tail, motioning for her to follow.
"Is something wrong?" Fluttershy asked as Angel led her around the side of the vendor's cart. "You seen awfully skittish this afternoon."
Angel motioned furiously for Fluttershy to get down, and then peered around the side of the cart and surveyed the area. The market still looked innocuous enough, full of ponies doing their weekly shopping, but the pounding in his head told a different story. Whoever was generating the aura must be in disguise.
Angel scowled as he examined every pony nearby, looking for anything that looked out of place. He recognized most of the shoppers, having met them at one time or another, and so he focused his search on the vendors. Given the substandard produce most of them were hawking, it wouldn't surprise Angel if one of them turned out to be—
Wait! That stallion with the pink coat and green mane, standing in front of the squash cart... Angel zeroed in on the pony, watching closely as he completed his purchase and walked to the next cart. Sure enough, the strength of the aura grew with the stallion's every step. There was no doubt in Angel's mind: This pony was the one he was looking for.
"Um... What are you doing down there?" The vendor who had just sold Angel and Fluttershy carrots asked the pair quizzically.
Angel immediately leaped up and grabbed the vendor's face, forcibly closing the pony's mouth with one paw while bringing the other paw to his own lips to signal for quiet. He quickly glanced back over at the pink stallion, and breathed a sigh of relief as his target continued walking to the next cart, blissfully ignorant of Angel's presence.
"Angel!" Fluttershy scolded her bunny. "That's not very nice."
Angel sighed, realizing that he needed to get away from Fluttershy to continue his surveillance unhindered. He dropped back down to the ground, made a motion for Fluttershy to stay where she was, and quickly hopped through a tangle of hooves across the market. "I'm so sorry about that," he heard Fluttershy apologizing as he left. "He's been acting strangely ever since we got here..."
Angel took up a position behind a large box of cabbages about three stalls down from where the pink stallion stood. He watched as the stallion made his way down the row of stalls, noting his peculiar habit of buying one of everything each vendor offered regardless of how many similar items he already had. His cutie mark seemed off as well: It was a trio of smiling flowers arranged in the exact same manner as Cheerilee's mark. He had never seen two ponies with the same cutie mark before, and he was willing to bet that he wasn't seeing it now either.
Angel waited until the stallion had reached the stall next to the cabbage box and made his customary purchases. Just before the stallion put his purchases in his saddlebag, Angel dashed out from behind the cabbages and swiped the bag of vegetables from the stallion's mouth. "Hey!" the stallion shouted. "Give that back!"
Angel made a mad dash for a nearby alleyway, and ran up to a half-filled trash can. When the stallion appeared at the alley entrance, Angel blew a raspberry at him, dumped the vegetables into the trash, and scurried away. The stallion smacked his face with his hoof and muttered some unintelligible words to himself, and went to reclaim his purchases.
Angel rounded the corner of the alleyway's far entrance, took a moment to catch his breath, and then waited until the stallion had walked over and stuck his head inside the can. Angel then ran back over to the can, grabbed a nearby stick off of the ground, and began banging the can like a drum.
"Ahhhhhh!" The stallion jumped back, his head vibrating from the racket. Before he could react, however, Angel leaped up and delivered a sharp kick underneath the pony's jaw, sending the pony head over hooves with surprising force.
As the pony landed on his back with a splat, Angel jumped on the pony's belly and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. "Who are you?" Angel demanded in a harsh tone and unfamiliar tongue. "Why have you come here?"
The pony's eyes widened. "You... You speak our language?"
"I know much more about your kind than just your language, I assure you," Angel growled. "Now answer me! Why have you come to this planet?"
The pony tried to pull out of Angel's grasp, but the bunny's tiny body contained a surprising amount of strength. "Who... Who are you?" he asked.
"I," Angel replied, "am merely a simple bunny rabbit with an interest in unusual intergalactic visitors." He pulled the pony's face closer. "Perhaps I should introduce you to the rulers of this land, to see if they share my interest..."
The pony started sweating bullets. "Please, sir, I don't want to cause any trouble. I just—"
"Of course you don't," Angel grumbled. "You'd rather keep these fool ponies nice and ignorant, wouldn't you? After all, what good is a surprise attack without the surprise?"
"Attack?" The pony looked quizzically at Angel. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't play games with me," Angel said. "I know Quulranian battle tactics when I see them! You're here on a reconnaissance mission, sizing up the native species before bringing in the battle cruisers and adding another planet to good King Horvath's empire! Well, allow me to be—"
"King Horvath?" The stallion shook his head. "No, sir! I serve King Vargos the Brave!"
"What?!" Angel stared at the pony in shock. "Vargos? King?" His grip on the pony softened as he stared off into the distance. "How is this possible?" he whispered to himself. "Vargos is not a member of the royal family! Even if the King became unfit to rule, Prince Zagar would have taken the throne as his successor."
The pony's mouth fell open at the rabbit's knowledge of the monarchy. "How do you know all this?" he asked.
Angel ignored the question, and pulled the pony's face close to his own. "How did this happen?" he demanded. "How did Vargos become king?"
"It happened about eight months ago," the pony stammered. "After King Horvath's death, King Vargos said that Prince Zagar's plan to make peace with the Gavalians would lead the empire into ruin, and claimed power in the name of the Lost Prince."
"He did what?!" Angel's eyes exploded into flames at the revelation. "That low-down cur! Staging a coup and throwing the entire galaxy into chaos just to satisfy his own bloodlust! If I could get my paws on that good-for-nothing traitor, I'd show him what—" He stopped short when he noticed the stallion's face turning blue, and relaxed his grip on the pony's neck. "And just what is your role in this farce?" he demanded.
The stallion took a moment to catch his breath. "I-I-I am a scientist, not a soldier," he insisted. "We are tasked with exploring the western edge of the galaxy and mapping out the worlds and life forms we find." He pointed to the vegetables that had fallen out of his saddlebags. "I specialize in the study of vegetation, and was trying to obtain samples of your plants for analysis. I only wear this disguise so as not to scare the locals. Our team is no threat to this planet, I swear."
"Are you thick?" Angel slapped the stallion. "Vargos does not care about your precious science! You are nothing but a de facto scouting party, letting that fool size up his opponents without putting his real forces in danger."
"No!" the stallion objected. "King Vargos is a wise ruler who seeks to learn the truths about—"
"Then teach him this truth." Angel's grip on the stallion re-tightened. "The ponies that rule this world have power enough to bend the very cosmos to their will. Their dungeons are filled with the bones of creatures that make your "brave" king's armies look like toy soldiers. I could end your life with a word, yet I am a mere pet to these ponies. Attempting to conquer this world would be a fool's errand, and a truly wise ruler would look elsewhere to expand their base of knowledge, or their empire. Do I make myself clear?"
The stallion gulped and nodded.
"Good." Angel released the stallion and hopped to the ground. "Now leave this planet at once! I don't want to see—"
"There you are, Angel!" Fluttershy's voice suddenly echoed in the alleyway. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"
Angel grimaced. "Heed my words," he whispered menacingly to the stallion. "If I am their pet... Imagine what they would make out of you."
"Oh dear, I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Fluttershy said as she approached Angel and the stallion. "It's just that Angel and I haven't finished our shopping yet, and he gets very unhappy if his vegetables aren't just right."
"No no, you're not interrupting anything at all!" the stallion said nervously as he began to backpedal. "In fact, your, uh, pet here was just giving me directions to, er, somewhere, so I'd better be going!"
"Ok, okay. Have a good trip!" Fluttershy waved as the stallion dashed away down the alleyway. "That was very nice of you to help that poor pony out," she commended Angel. "You must be feeling better now."
Angel rolled his eyes, and cast a stern glare back down the alley.
"Come along, now," Fluttershy said. "We still need to get your lettuce and radishes while they're still in stock."
The remainder of the shopping trip passed by quickly, as Angel no longer had the concentration to focus on the color of his radishes, and simply rubber-stamped the first vegetables Fluttershy passed in front of him. His mind kept drifting back to his encounter with the strange stallion, and what it meant for both his future and that of the ponies around him.
Part of him had always known that this day would come; Quulranians were nothing if not planet-hungry conquerors, and it was only a matter of time before their technology caught up with their ambitions. Still, he had estimated that it would take another few centuries before they were able to reach Equestria and still have enough power to return home. The question of how they got here, however, was irrelevant: They were here now, and his job was to figure out what to do next.
The first question was whether or not to inform the ponies of the impending danger. Telling them was the most prudent solution, but doing so meant revealing his own secrets as well, and he wasn't sure he was ready to deal with the fallout the truth would bring.
As he watched Fluttershy hitch up her cart, Angel reflected on their time together, and on the comfortable life he had built. Sure, he enjoyed the catering and the grooming and the status of being Fluttershy's number one companion, but his connection to the yellow pony ran much deeper than that. Fluttershy was the first creature, pony or otherwise, who gave him genuine affection, and she did so without strings or conditions. Unlike the emotionless vacuums that were his parents, Fluttershy cared about him for who he was, not for who he was supposed to be, or who he should appear to be. He had spent his entire life looking for someone like her, and he wasn't willing to give her up.
Of course, Fluttershy wasn't really the problem—after all, if she could put up with Discord, she could deal with anything. If his secret came out, he was sure it would change nothing between them. The rest of the world, however, wouldn't be as understanding. He had seem how much fright and terror a simple bunny stampede had generated in Ponyville, and he could only imagine how the ponies would react to someone like him living in their midst. At best, he would be forced into exile, perhaps into the Everfree Forest or some such place, and his contact with Fluttershy would be reduced to short visits that were few and far between. At worst, he might end up next to Tirek in the pits of Tartarus.
Angel took a deep breath and decided to hold his tongue for the time being. The strange stallion's team was undoubtedly aware of the power of the pony princesses, so perhaps the fact that a super-powered rabbit had deduced their entire plan would be enough to scare them away from Equestria, at least for a little while. Besides, despite all of his bravado, Angel had his doubts about whether the princesses and the Elements of Harmony could actually withstand an Quulranian assault, regardless of how much notice they had.
Remaining silent didn't mean remaining complacent, however, and Angel still had a trump card to play if push came to shove. He reached deep into his fur and pulled out a triangular medallion that hung around his neck. The obscure symbol on the medallion meant nothing to the ponies, but it carried significantly more weight in Quulranian politics, enough to bring "Brave" King Vargos's reign to an abrupt halt. The fool may have claimed power in the name of the Lost Prince, but his plan had one fatal flaw: The prince was not as lost as Vargos thought.