//------------------------------// // Evaluating her Passenger // Story: SciTwi's New Friend // by Damaged //------------------------------// Twilight almost slumped in her chair. It might have "science" in the name, but Social Sciences are so boring! Her hand moved, pencil working on the page to draw a rough diagram of Ada. She was, in fact, so distracted that she didn't notice something was wrong until she felt a gentle poke in her belly. "Ada?" "No, Miss Sparkle. The question was, what sort of job did you want to get when you leave school?" The tired-looking substitute teacher cared almost as little for the class as Twilight did, and it showed. "Everyone I have asked so far had an answer, even if 'Professional Rapper' is a poor one." "Um, I wanted to research magic." Twilight suddenly realized Ada had been trying to get her attention back on class. "I mean, it has been happening so much lately and-" "Magic? Twilight Sparkle you will see me after class." Mr. Roll looked on to another student. "Miss Hooves, what do you want to do when you leave school?" Derpy had been caught leaning over, whispering in Flash Sentry's ear. "Oh, uh… I was going to work full-time in my job." She smiled wide. "I help mom sort mail at her work, but they said I can deliver it when I graduate!" Flash couldn't fight the enthusiasm of the girl at his side, blushing hard, he reached his hand across and held hers, giving it a squeeze. "You'll be great at it." Looking up at the clock, Mr. Roll sat up straight. "I want a two thousand word essay on why you all want to do what you want to when you graduate. I want to see you looking at promotion possibilities and I want them by tomo-" the bell started to ring, "rrow!" Whether any of the class heard the end of the teacher's words or not wasn't obvious, but all of them rushed for the door. All but three. In the corner, Derpy and Flash stared into each-others eyes. "Miss Hooves, Mr. Sentry, class is over." Derpy squealed a giggle and Flash gave a laugh, the pair scrambling from the room, leaving Twilight behind. "Sir, you wanted me to stay back?" Twilight felt bad, but a little confused. "Yes, I did. Every student in the class had something meaningful to aspire towards, but when I asked you, Miss Sparkle, you made a joke." Mr. Roll leaned back in his chair. "You are a smart girl, your grades in the hard sciences are out of this world. English is not so great, but there aren't a lot of schools that will refuse a girl with your grades just because of a B in English. So what is up?" "Uh…" Twilight trailed off. "The magic-" "Twilight, please stop with this 'magic' stuff." Twilight inhaled deeply and felt a little squirm in her belly. Pondering Ada reminded her that Mr. Roll had arrived after the whole "Midnight Sparkle taking over the world and ripping holes in reality" thing. "Okay, what about if I said I found an entirely new species of creature?" It felt to Twi like there was a jiggling in her belly and she could guess that Ada was laughing. "That would be more a biology subject. Is that what you want to do? Study biology?" Sitting forward again, Mr. Roll recognized some genuine interest in the girl. "If you do, we could talk about-" He reached down to his desk, opening a drawer and pulled it open just in time to hear a choking cough and a wet plop. "Meet Ada. She… is new here." Twilight was regretting letting Ada out already, the slight tingling-burn of bile ruined her palate. "Hi!" Ada waved a little hoof at the teacher, then rolled and squirmed on some papers to clean off. "Why don't you like magic?" She looked up at the teacher, saw his eyes bulge and mouth opening and closing. Turning back to look at Twilight she asked, "Is he okay?" "I don't think he has ever met anyone as amazing as you before, Ada. Your words are much better." Twilight reached into her pocket and pulled out a little pack of tissues, reaching out with a few to carefully dab the little creature dry. "I would talk to the biology teacher about her, but I don't think it would be polite what they would want to do to Ada." Working his mouth a few more times, the teacher finally closed his eyes. "Okay Rick, this is nothing really strange. One of your students just regurgitated a tiny lizard-" "She is more pony-like, I think. See, she has a soft mane and a snout like one…" Twilight realized—once she started talking—that it probably wasn't the time for it. "A tiny… pony, and then the little… pony, turns out to have a name and is actually a little cute, but smells like… like…" Mr. Roll leaned back and back, eyes closing. "He fainted." Twilight held out her hand to Ada, fighting the urge to giggle as the little creature climbed up her arm in a most ticklish manner. "Uh… you do smell pretty bad, Ada. I wonder if that is because of the food I ate?" "Ada is bad?" Ada looked up at Twilight from where she was wrapped around the girl's forearm. "I'm sorry!" It wasn't the tone, or even the words that sank any hope Twilight had of pursuing the smell further, it was the huge-seeming eyes that stared up at her with terror in them. "Ada, it's alright. It isn't your fault." "Ada really likes Twilight." Ada leaned her head down against the girl's arm, nuzzling it like a cat. "She likes being in Twilight, and talking with Twilight. Ada even likes-" Ada lifted her head in surprise when a soft pair of lips pressed to her soft mane. She gave a giggle of delight. "Ada wasn't bad?" "No, Ada, you weren't bad. But we are going to find out where that smell comes from. There might be a way to help Ada be even better!" Twilight carefully worked around the problem, giving a nervous laugh at the end. "Hey, maybe you could help wake up Mr. Roll?" "Yay!" Ada perked right up, looking across at the teacher for a moment before staring up at Twilight again. "How do I help?" Twilight reached over the desk, holding her arm out so that the stinky little parasite was just near the teacher's nose. Mr. Roll jerked upright, eyes going wide and staring right ahead, at the "pony thing" that was barely an inch from his face. "Ahh!" Ada blinked a few times, then twitched an ear. "Sorry, Ada only like's Twilight. Maybe when Ada lays eggs you can have a little friend too?" The comment about eggs struck Twilight odd, her analytical mind searching back through recent memories before pulling up the one from early in their… friendship. "Uh, Ada?" Twilight pulled her arm back from the surprised teacher. "About the eggs…" Ada was clearly on her favorite subject, she squirmed and crawled around Twilight's arm a few times. "Yup! Ada will lay lots of eggs!" "In me?" Twilight tried to keep the shock from her tone, but it was impossible. "Uh, yes! Don't worry," Ada squirmed up Twilight's arm, reaching her shoulder to pat the girl on the cheek, "they go through… come out… they don't hurt!" "So it just… okay, we are going to need to talk more about this." Twilight reached up and rubbed Ada's mane, catching one ear. "Sorry Mr. Roll, we got a little distracted. So, as you can see, I have a special friend, and it would be really cool to study her and… okay, we are really going to have to talk about eggs." Her hand still rubbed the little creature, Ada's head tilted and leaning into the ear-rubbing. "She?" Rick waited until the girl, and the creature, nodded. "Okay, she is intelligent, she can talk clearly enough. Have you checked just how smart she is?" As he set aside his initial shock, the teacher realized there was something here for him to work with, to really work with. "I… I hadn't had a chance to measure that. I was teaching her words and language. When she first… when we first met, she couldn't talk." Twilight heard the softest of little sounds of delight coming from Ada, and was thankful she was becoming a little nose-dead to her smell. "How long have you been working on language then? Have you worked out the basics?" Rick stopped and closed his eyes. "Sorry, Ada, I should just ask you. How long have you been here? When did you first start learning English?" Twilight realized her efforts were making it impossible for Ada to reply. When she eased back on the ear-rubbing, Ada actually leaned up a little to try to continue. "Aww, no more?" She looked forlornly up at the girl, trying to use her eyes on Twilight again. "We have some questions for the smartest… uh, for you, Ada." Twilight filed away the mental note to do some more research about Ada's species later. "How old are you?" "Hard to remember all the way." Ada tapped her snout with a tiny hoof. "All squirmy and hungry, not a lot of 'thinky.' " She smiled up at Twilight, then across at the teacher. "But about four days, I think." "You are talking and reasoning after four days?" Mr. Roll stared at Ada a moment before closing his eyes yet again. "No, forget that Rick. Okay, next question, what do you… what do you want to do? With humanity, that is." Ada tilted her head on the side and blinked her expressive eyes in confusion. "Uh… I like Twilight. I want to learn with her, she is smart!" Ada leaned up and nuzzled against the underside of Twilight Sparkle's chin. "But I want to make friends, lay my eggs." Ada saw the slight tension on Twilight's face. "It will be okay, my eggs won't hurt!" She patted Twilight's cheek with a tiny hoof. "How many eggs will you lay? Do you need to find a… a male?" Rick was starting to see some worry in this now. "How often do you lay eggs?" "I don't know…" Ada was snuggled up against Twilight's neck now. "Calm down Ada." Twilight reached her hand up and started rubbing her ears again. To her teacher she gave a placating gesture. "I don't think we really need to jump to conclusions. She is just one cute little… whatever Ada is. Let's keep watching her, physically. You wanted to test her intelligence?" Muttering softly, Rick reached down to his desk draws, "Cute little things invading the world and laying eggs in us all and…" He trailed off when he found what he wanted. "Here, this will take a few hours to do, however." "Ada, are you hungry again, yet?" Twilight drew a finger back from rubbing Ada's ears to boop her on the nose. "Not yet… maybe later. What is that?" She pointed a hoof at the stack of pages the teacher had gotten out. "This? This is an IQ test. It isn't the full, formal one, but it will give a good idea just how clever you are." Rick looked around his desk for a pen. "You can write?" "I can try!" Ada lifted a hoof in excitement. "How do I do that?" She pointed at the pages. "Just follow the instructions, Ada." Twilight reached up to lift Ada free of her neck. "And then we are going to sit down and you can do all the puzzles." She gave Mr. Roll a wink. ~~~~~+++++~~~~~ Twilight's belly grumbled at lunch, she had two trays of food piled up and settled at a table. Before she could even start on one of the plates, her friends arrived. "Oh, hey guys!" "Twi!" "Twilight!" "How's it going?" Various replies came back to Twilight's greeting, but she couldn't think all that clearly. She picked up the first burger and crammed it into her mouth. "Oh that's good…" Twilight chewed quickly, making sure to grind up the meal as small as possible before gulping it down. "Sorry, eating for two and all." She grinned and took another bite, not realizing what she had said until six stares looked at her in shock. "Ada!" She eased back from the burger, taking a more dainty bite. "I mean Ada, I'm not… yuck…" "You're such a geek, Twi." Rainbow Dash was settling down with her own lunch when she saw a teacher rush into the cafeteria. "Uh, don't look now, it is that dweeb sub teacher." "Twilight!" Mr. Roll waved an envelope in the air. "Twilight?" When he caught sight of the girl he rushed over and dropped the letter on the table. "What's the matter Mr. Roll?" Twilight took a bite of a little more of her veggie burger. "What's this?" She picked up the letter, chewing and swallowing. Looking down the columns of numbers, she blinked and froze. "A hundred and twenty five?" Twilight's hand flew to her shirt, pressing gently against the little movement within. "Hear that Ada?" There was two little taps from within.