A cloaked figure crept onto the schoolhouse grounds. Nopony else was around this late at night. The windows of the building were shuttered, and no light filtered through. A hoof emerged from the cloak and rapped against the door three times. There was no response.
She pressed her muzzle against the doorframe. "It's Twilight. Mac invited me," she whispered into the crack.
Twilight Sparkle stood on the schoolhouse doorstep, anxiously waiting. She started to wonder if she'd arrived on the correct night. But then somepony flipped a latch, and the door finally creaked open. A familiar face quickly ushered her inside. Cheerilee looked carefully this way and that before shutting and locking the door behind them.
The interior of the main schoolroom was dimly lit by a few candles. Chairs had been arranged in a circle. Fewer than a dozen ponies were seated, and Big Macintosh was the only pony Twilight recognized. One of the others was just a filly, and the ponies adjacent to her didn't look like her parents. Another pony wore a strange hat. Nothing else was remarkable about any of them, unless you counted a wandering eye. Cheerilee walked over and sat with the group as Twilight hung her cloak.
Then Cheerilee smiled and patted the empty chair beside her, and Twilight walked over and took her seat. The ponies here seemed worried. Judging by the looks she was getting, they weren't expecting a princess to join them this evening.
"I'd like us all to welcome Princess Twilight Sparkle to our group," said Cheerilee. "Why don't we—"
"It's Twilight. Just, Twilight. Please," said Twilight. She shifted her haunches uncomfortably against the base of the foal-sized chair.
"Of course, Twilight. Now, some introductions." At Cheerilee's direction, each of the other ponies in the circle briefly introduced themselves. They gave names and occupations, but none said anything about why they were here.
"Now that we know each other's names, why don't we start by letting Twilight share some of her experiences?" said Cheerilee.
Twilight looked at the expectant faces surrounding her. "Um... If it's okay, I think I would feel more comfortable listening to other ponies speak first," she said.
Cheerilee pursed her lips for a moment. "I'm afraid that's not how it works. I can assure you, Twilight, everypony here is as nervous as you are. You're a good friend, and I trust you, but most of these ponies haven't interacted with you in an informal setting. Before the group can open up to you, we need to hear your admission. It will help show us that you belong here."
"We're on your side," said a homely-looking earth pony wearing a hat made from crumpled tinfoil. An actual, homemade tinfoil hat: the ultimate cliche in lunatic fashion. Twilight Sparkle rolled her eyes, then shut them tightly and lowered her head. This was ridiculous.
One of the other ponies scowled at him. "I told you to leave that stupid thing at home," she said.
"Look, I... I really shouldn't have come here. I'm sorry for wasting your time," said Twilight, carefully avoiding eye contact with everypony. She stood up to leave.
"Twilight, please," begged Big Macintosh, rising to his hooves. After a moment of awkward silence, he sat back down and stared at the floor.
It took Twilight a while to react. Despite his massive stature, Big Macintosh looked vulnerable, even desperate. Tartarus, they all looked pathetic, even Cheerilee, and she was one of the brightest ponies Twilight had ever known. Big Mac kept his gaze hoofward, but many other sad, hopeful eyes looked up to her. Her heart ached for them. Even if she didn't belong here, she felt an obligation to help.
Deep down, Twilight knew it was just an excuse. At least it was a good one.
She sat back down. "Okay. Okay."
"Twilight," said Cheerilee, "I know this is hard. A pony's first night is never easy. But nopony is here to judge you."
"To be perfectly honest, I'm just as concerned about me unfairly judging all of you," said Twilight.
"As long as you treat us with respect, you'll be fine," said Cheerilee. "Being in the Paranormal Society doesn't mean you have to endorse, or even believe, what any other pony here says. Okay?"
"Fine. Look, everypony. I'm a scientist, above all else," said Twilight. "Even when I study magic, I break it down as much as I can. I don't believe in supernatural voodoo, or superstitions, or astrology, or any nonsense like that. I mean, I can barely accept Pinkie Pie's extrasensory abilities, and even then only because they can be reliably replicated. I believe there is a logical explanation for everything in this world, even the things I'm here to talk about. I just don't know what it is yet. Big Mac asked me to come here, so—"
"Do your friends think you're crazy?" interrupted a walleyed pegasus mare. She spoke very softly, but with sharp intensity.
Twilight shook her head. "Not exactly, no. My friends just think I'm under a lot of stress, and that maybe I'm imagining things because of it. I am under a lot of stress, of course. It comes with the job title." She paused for a moment and stared at the floor in the center of the circle, then took a breath deep enough to dive for pearls.
"It all started with the dreams," she began, and all eyes were fixed upon her.
"A little less than a year ago, around the time we defeated King Sombra—this was in the Crystal Empire, but I'm sure everypony here heard the news—I began having these bizarre nightmares," said Twilight. She shut her eyes tightly, and continued speaking. "I guess I can't exactly call them nightmares, because I never remember any details, but I wake up in a cold sweat so what else would you call them? I was troubled by them, and I went to Zecora for a remedy. It didn't work."
Twilight opened her eyes and bit nervously at her lip. "Anyway, at the time I was embarrassed to be dealing with something as juvenile as 'bad dreams'. Back then I was spending most of my time trying to prove how 'mature' I was to Princess Celestia," she said. "I mean, I'm not a little foal anymore. Er, no offense," she added, directed at the filly.
"It's okay," whispered the little filly. Cheerilee cracked a brief smile.
"Thanks. So then, um, I didn't want to admit I had a problem. It really wasn't all that bad, anyway," said Twilight. "Whatever the dreams are about, when I have one, the memories slip away within seconds of waking up. I have to change my bedsheets more frequently—just from the sweat, I mean, I wasn't, like—you know. I guess I got used to the new routine, and just forgot about it. But now that I'm starting to notice all these other details, I think the dreams were some kind of early warning sign."
Twilight looked around the circle to gauge the audience. She wiped a bead of sweat from her brow and took a deep, empty swallow.
Cheerilee placed a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "The dreams you're describing are very common among our members. We're not certain what they are, either," she said, very gently, as though Twilight Sparkle were one of her students. "You're among friends here, Twilight. Do you want to tell us something about these 'other details'?"
Twilight nodded. "Right. Okay, the details. Well, this is where it starts to sound crazy, I'm just warning you all. Eventually I started noticing these, I guess I'd call them, inconsistencies in things? It's hard to put a word on it," she said. "The phenomenon manifests in a wide variety of ways. I can't really say when I started seeing them everywhere, but they started really bugging me right around the time I became a princess." She stared off into space for a moment, composing her thoughts.
Twilight realized she was putting her experiences into words for the first time, and it was difficult. "The first oddities I noticed were visual," she continued. "Like, I'd see somepony's flank—an adult pony, I mean—and their cutie mark would be missing entirely! But the catch is, it would only happen if I was looking at it out of the corner of my eye. Once I turned to look at it directly, the mark would appear. Now, at first I just figured it was my blind spot, which is a common optical illusion caused by the location of the optic nerve. The way it works is, some of what you see in your peripheral vision is missing, so your brain fills in the details with a kind of emptiness. It's actually kind of fascinating. I can illustrate if you have pen and paper—"
"That's okay, Twilight," said Cheerilee, in a soothing voice. "I know the effect you're referring to, and the rest of us will take your word for it."
"Oh. Sorry, I can get a little carried away. But that's what I thought it was. Mystery solved, right? But, not quite. I noticed it happening in areas of my vision that shouldn't be affected by the optic nerve, and I did some experiments to confirm my suspicion. And then I started seeing other things that couldn't possibly be caused by a blind spot, because it wasn't missing details, it was weird details. Like, I'd see somepony's legs overlapping in an impossible way, or a flank with two different cutie marks. I even started seeing exact duplicates of the same pony in a crowd of faces! That one, um, it happened again, just yesterday."
Twilight bit at her lower lip, and looked around at the other ponies. Every face was rapt with wonder. Cheerilee's eyes were smiling, but they shimmered with a different emotion.
She knows, thought Twilight. What I'm saying makes sense to her. It makes sense to all of them! Holy Celestia. I might actually be sane...
"Then it started happening with my semantic memory," said Twilight, her speech flowing more energetically. "For example, a book title would change, and I'd know it, because it would be some book I've read many times, or one I looked at daily in the library, back when the Golden Oak Library was still alive, I mean. All of this was driving me crazy, so I started experimenting more. I practiced looking at things in my peripheral vision until I could analyze the details, and then I began to notice even more inconsistencies. I've been documenting this privately for a few months now—I can bring my logbooks next time if anypony is interested. One time I wrote down the title of every book in the library, and then reviewed the list a day later. Nopony had checked out or returned any books, but one of the book titles had changed, two were missing, and a new book had appeared—one I'd never even seen before!" she exclaimed.
"Sshhh," whispered foil-hat. Twilight realized her voice had risen rather dramatically.
"Sorry," she said, lowering her volume by a few notches. "Anyway, it started affecting my episodic memory, too. My day-to-day memories don't always mesh up properly anymore. Sometimes dates are completely wrong. Sometimes it seems like somepony had to have been in two places at the same time for a sequence of events to make any sense. And the worst one is, sometimes things just feel wrong, which is awful because it's hard to objectively measure that sort of thing. Like, my friends and I might solve somepony's friendship problem, but when I stop to think about what we actually did, it wouldn't make any logical sense. Why did we do what we did? How did it work? That sort of thing. To be safe, I've had several batteries of cognitive testing performed by experts, and also by Spike. So I know I'm not suffering from dementia. The only two possibilities are that I have some rare kind of delusional insanity, or something very strange is happening."
Twilight paused for a moment to regain her breath. "Do, um. Do any of you understand what I'm saying...?" she asked.
"Show of hooves?" said Cheerilee, with a smirk. Everypony raised a hoof.
"It matches up with my experiences almost exactly, Prin—I mean, Twilight," said a dark-pelted pegasus stallion.
"Eeyup," said Big Macintosh.
"Oh yes indeed," said a unicorn mare dressed in a casual sweater. "Especially seeing strange things out of the corner of your eye, and that nagging feeling that nothing makes sense anymore. That happens to me at least once per week!"
"How often does it happen to you?" another mare asked Twilight.
"Now? Several times per day, with rare exception," said Twilight. "A day free of disturbances only happens when I spend most of the day in the castle. To be honest, I can't even recall the last time I had a normal day."
"D'you know how come the weird stuff happens?" squeaked the little unicorn filly, her eyes bright and wide. "'Cause we don't."
Twilight shook her head. "Not yet. But recently, I remembered the dreams that seemed to start the whole thing, so I've been keeping a dream log by my bedside. I can only write a few words on paper before everything goes blank, but my current theory is that the nightmares are actually old memories, like the time Spike ran away from home, or the time we negotiated a treaty with one of the buffalo tribes. I've tried using magic to open up my dreams, to no success. Zecora's potions haven't worked either. Up until today, Zecora was the only pony I'd confided in with all the details. She hasn't noticed anything herself, but it might be because she doesn't spend much time in town and lives in simple surroundings. Even so, she believes my experiences are real."
"Twilight, do you think the hidden dreams might hold any recent memories? Or do they only include memories that predate your paranormal experiences?" asked Cheerilee. "Nopony here has been able to recall anything from the nightmares, but most of us have them. Personally, I have those awful dreams every single night. It feels like they're usually about teaching, which I suppose stands to reason, but that's all I know."
"I'm fairly certain none of the words I've written upon waking refer to recent events," said Twilight. "The conjecture that my dreams are confined to old memories remains a valid hypothesis."
"Very interesting," said Cheerilee. "Well group, I think it's time for Twilight to hear from some of us."
The rest of the group began to describe their experiences in brief. Big Macintosh felt fatigued all the time, yet had no difficulty completing his chores, which he was certain should be impossible; doctors said he was perfectly fine. Several ponies saw impossible things similar to what Twilight described, usually in their peripheral vision. Tinfoil-hat pony heard voices and believed he was being abducted by strange, two-legged beings on a monthly basis. A mare had been trying to conceive for several months with no success, despite the doctors declaring her and her husband fertile and healthy. One of the mares said she could talk to ghosts and believed she was the reincarnation of Star Swirl the Bearded. More than half of the group had unsettling dreams they couldn't remember. The little filly's story was the most heartbreaking of all: she swore she'd had an older brother just a year ago, but her parents didn't remember him. All of his things disappeared right when he did, leaving an empty room in their house that wasn't even being used as storage. Other than the ghost-seeing pony, nopony remembered anything unusual happening to them until about a year ago.
"This is insane! Do any of you have theories about what might be happening?" Twilight asked the group.
"ALIE—" began the hat pony, but somepony next to him shoved a hoof in his mouth.
"Not any theories that make much sense, but I think I speak for the group when I say we're hoping you might be able to come up with something," said Cheerilee. She bit at her lower lip for a moment. "Also, there's something very important nopony has mentioned yet. You need to be warned about the Visitors."
"Visitors?" asked Twilight.
"They're aliens!" whispered the pony in the tinfoil hat, more quickly than a hoof could silence him.
"Nnope," said Big Macintosh.
"Well, to be fair, alien beings from another dimension is as good a theory as any we've got. We really don't know who or what they are," said Cheerilee. "Twilight, I'm curious: how do you think we found out about you?"
"Huh? Well, I must have said something about how I'm still having the nightmares to Applejack, so she told Big Macintosh..."
"Nnope," repeated Big Macintosh.
"Wait. What do you mean? Applejack gave me the letter from Big Mac, asking me to show up tonight," said Twilight.
"Applejack doesn't know what this group is. She thinks it's an invitation-only support group for shyness," said Cheerilee.
Twilight paused for a moment, muzzle scrunched up in thought. "We should tell her. Even as crazy as my story sounds, Applejack will believe me if I tell her the whole truth."
And I can always trust her in return, thought Twilight. Where would I be without a friend as reliable as Applejack?
"I agree we should spread the word eventually, but currently our protocol is to keep silent unless we take a vote to include an outsider," said Cheerilee. "Until now, we didn't have the word of a princess on our side, but we still need to be careful."
"Agreed," said Twilight. "Er, but wait a moment. How did you know I was seeing things? Just by watching me? I thought I was hiding it well."
"You do hide it well, Twilight," said Cheerilee. "I'm afraid I have more unsettling news for you. We knew you were one of us because you're being watched by the Visitors. Nearly all of us are, although a couple of our members seem to have escaped their attention."
"It's because of the hat," said the pony beneath it. Big Macintosh scowled at him.
"Watched?" said Twilight.
"Yes. I've seen ponies spying on you on three separate occasions, over the past two weeks alone," said Cheerilee. "I'm certain they're Visitors."
Twilight's jaw dropped. "What? You've got to be kidding," she said. "I mean, let's be rational about this, I'm a princess, so of course ponies are going to watch—"
"Ponies are going to watch, yes," Cheerilee said, her voice suddenly curt. "But they're not going to follow you around town without ever approaching you. They're not going to carefully keep tabs on everything you say and do in public, for hours at a time, and sometimes take notes. Especially when, as far as we can determine, they aren't even citizens of Ponyville in the first place."
"But, who are these 'Visitors'? What do they look like?" asked Twilight. "The Canterlot Royal Guard needs to be notified of this immediately. Outsiders watching our every move? This sounds like the beginnings of a full-scale invasion!"
"I was going to reach out to you for help even before I knew you were having the same experiences as the rest of us," said Cheerilee. "I started observing your daily routine, because I couldn't think of the best way to approach you with something this, well, 'crazy'. That's when I noticed the Visitors were already keeping tabs on you. They only follow ponies who have experienced the inconsistencies you mentioned, or at least had the dreams."
"They can take the form of any kind of pony," said the walleyed mare. "Usually they just hide in crowds."
"Horsefeathers. It's changelings," said Twilight. "That settles it. I have to notify Princess Celestia and Princess Luna immediately."
"Excellent, that's exactly what we were hoping for," said Cheerilee. "However, just so you know, we're not entirely certain the Visitors are changelings."
If Cheerilee were any other pony, Twilight would have assumed she simply meant hers wasn't an expert opinion. "What makes you say that?" asked Twilight.
"I read up on changelings after the attack on Canterlot, naturally. I also spoke with several Canterlot residents about what they saw during the battle. We've seen the Visitors change shape when they don't think they're being observed, and there is no light, sound, or magical signature. It's a near-instantaneous change. I know what you're thinking, it sounds impossible. A few of us have even spotted them fixing some of the visual disturbances. They only need to be within a couple dozen hooves of something to alter it. They appear to be concentrating, but again, there's no magical trace."
"My Stars," said Twilight, holding a hoof to her temple. "To leave no magical signature, they would need to tap into an overwhelming amount of power. Illusion magic could do it, I suppose, but it would have to cover the whole city! No, that has to be it. Illusion magic is at play here at a very large scale, it's the only way. How many of them are there?"
"They're all over Ponyville. Definitely more than ten, and probably more than twenty. Twilight, one of the foals I teach is a Visitor—I'm one hundred percent certain," said Cheerilee. "It doesn't do a very good impression of a foal, and my students just think he's shy and weird. But they're very good at impersonating adult ponies. At any rate, given the powers they seem to have, there are more than enough of them here to monitor and control day-to-day life for most of our residents. They're essentially everywhere in the city during the daytime. We never see them after sunset."
Twilight slumped over in her chair, stunned. As the wheels in her head turned, her eyes scanned empty space in front of her rapidly, as though she were reading the pages of an invisible book. "It's almost certainly an invasion. They're probably in Ponyville to keep watch on me and my friends, but I'll bet they're all over Canterlot as well. Privately speaking, my friends and I are a pretty powerful defense force, so the Visitors would definitely want to neutralize us early on," said Twilight. "Wait a moment. Has anypony ever tried talking to them? I mean, there's still a small chance they aren't bad ponies, isn't there?"
Everypony looked very uncomfortable. After several empty seconds, Big Macintosh broke the silence with a single, soft word:
"Once."
Cheerilee nodded. She closed her eyes, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "Many of us have tried to talk to them. Sometimes they would seem angry, but usually they just looked surprised. They would always disappear, or run away," she said. "But there was one member of our group, in particular, who wouldn't give up on it. He tried to approach them on numerous occasions, and would confront them as publicly as possible, creating a scene every time."
"Oh no," said Twilight. "What happened?"
It looked like Cheerilee was holding back tears. "He was a pegasus pony, an adult stallion. That's all we know anymore, and then only because one of us wrote it down. We can't remember his cutie mark, or anything about what he looked like. For Celestia's sake, Twilight, we can't even remember his name! He's gone, just like that," she said, tapping her hooftips together. "Completely, totally, gone. It's like he was purged from reality itself. Of course, we hope it's an isolated incident, but I'm sure you already see the implications."
"There could be countless others. I mean, we would have no way of knowing," said Twilight. "If they can alter ponies' memories... Dear Celestia. I always assumed that memory magic like this might exist. If it does, it's probably forbidden, for obvious reasons."
"Please pretend you can't see them, Miss Princess Twilight," urged the filly. "I want you to find my brother and not dis-ta-peer like him."
"Being careful is good advice, but I don't think you need to worry about the Visitors as long as you don't confront them in the open. Just be aware when they might be watching you. As far as we know, they can only take equine shapes," said Cheerilee. "But now you know something about what we're up against. Twilight, whoever these ponies might be, this thing isn't just in our heads. Ponyville, and quite possibly all of Equestria, may be in grave danger."
Twilight's face grew pale, but she stood up from her chair straight and tall. "This is too difficult to put in a letter, so I'll leave for Canterlot tomorrow morning," she said. "Based on what you've told me, it's probably best I not inform my friends about this yet. I'll start with Princess Luna as my first contact. I have questions to ask about my dreams, so she's the natural choice."
"Thank you so much, Twilight," said one of the ponies, and everypony else quickly echoed the sentiment.
"Please be cautious, even with Luna," said Cheerilee. "We haven’t yet observed any of the Visitors impersonating specific ponies the way changelings can, but it’s a possibility we should be prepared for."
"Of course. I'll watch my flank," said Twilight.
"Alright, it's getting very late, everypony," said Cheerilee. "We'll each leave the schoolhouse in five-minute intervals, as usual. Twilight can leave first, because she probably needs to prepare for her ride to Canterlot."
After Twilight put her cloak back on, each of the ponies at the meeting came up and hugged her or shook her hoof to wish her good luck on her journey. Because of all the contact, she wasn't certain which one of them had placed the note in her cloak. She found it after she'd returned to the castle.
The note read: "Stop by the Office of Equestrian Records."