The six of them occupied the library’s front room. The window shades were pulled and the door was locked. Tension was palpable in the air.
Twilight Sparkle paced the room in front of the others. Her purple mane was frizzled and equally purple coat was soaked in nervous sweat. The horn on her forehead glowed with magic, and a quill and pad of paper floated beside her, occasionally scribbling notes seemingly by itself.
She whirled to face the room. “Is is just me or is this entire situation getting completely out of control!?”
“Darling, calm down,” said her friend Rarity, sitting primly on the couch. Earlier, she’d been glad when Twilight had gotten up to pace. It wouldn’t be good if an errant flick of ink from Twilight’s feverish note-taking had gotten on her white coat.
“I mean, why are you freaking out, anyway?” asked Rainbow Dash, colorful as her name, who drifted a few feet off the floor in the corner of the room, wings flapping lazily.
“Did you not follow everything that just happened in the last twelve hours!?” Twilight demanded.
“Yeah, I reckon we were all there,” said Applejack, who sat beside Rarity but with a looser posture. She pushed her cowboy hat up to scratch at the side of her head with an orange hoof. “And I gotta admit, it was stranger than seein’ a fish on a bicycle, but it’s done and over now.”
“And too bad,” added Pinkie Pie. “If that strange spaceman had any more to say, I would have run out of popcorn.” She fished in her poofy pink mane and pulled out a box of popcorn, which was quite full. She tossed some popcorn into her mouth.
“He didn’t say anything else because he died,” Twilight pointed out. “After presumably fighting Nightmare Moon on the moon and then crashing his spaceship into the Everfree Forest.”
“I’m glad we were there to give him a proper burial,” whispered Fluttershy, hiding her face behind her pink mane and ruffling her yellow feathers nervously.
“Okay, good on us for being there in a time of need for a suffering creature, but we still have a big problem,” said Twilight.
“What is it?” asked Rarity. “I think we’ve all made good points. This alien, while meeting an unfortunate fate, showed no hostile intentions, gave us some jewelry, and you say he may have even saved us from a thousand-year-old monster. It’s too bad what happened to him, but why are you still so worked up?”
Twilight took a deep breath. Pretending she was giving a lecture to a classroom helped her calm down. “Princess Celestia sent me here to oversee the Summer Sun Celebration. However, I found in an old book that Nightmare Moon would be returning after a thousand years of imprisonment on the moon. Instead, there was some sort of battle on the moon which most ponies thought was just a fireworks show, and then this alien spacecraft crashed.”
Rainbow opened her mouth, but Twilight pressed on to avoid interruption. “So what am I worried about? I’ll tell you when I think of more, but these are the ones I’ve thought about right now. One: what if the alien lost the fight and Nightmare Moon is still out there? Two: what if there are more aliens like him out there and they think we had something to do with what happened to him? Three: these bracelets he gave us have to be more than they appear. Why would an alien with technology so advanced as to be unfathomable to us just give us plain-looking silver-colored bands? I don’t believe for a second that there isn’t more to them than meets the eye.”
She gestured to the six identical bracelets, arranged neatly in the center of the floor.
“He did call ‘em assasamimilators,” said Applejack. “I wonder what that means?”
“Assimilators,” said Twilight. “And I have no idea.” She shook her head. “Nevermind, I need to inform the Princess immediately. Spike!”
There was a moment of silence as no one answered Twilight’s call.
“Who’s Spike?” asked Rainbow.
“The baby dragon that was with Twilight when she arrived in Ponyville earlier,” said Fluttershy.
“Has anypony seen him?” Twilight asked.
“I think the last time I saw him was shortly after we left the party and saw the spaceship falling to the ground,” said Rarity.
“Oh, right!” said Pinkie. “He was trying to sneak back in to get more cake and must not have noticed us running off into the forest.”
“So where is he now?” Twilight asked. “Is he still over in the town hall? We need to find him so he can send a letter to Princess Celestia for me.”
She turned towards the door and in her haste tripped over the bracelets. Before she fell on her face, one of them made it around her hoof and settled on her fetlock.
Twilight still went ahead and fell on her face, but somewhere in there her body transformed completely.
There was a lot of screaming from all six of them. Suddenly turning into an alien could cause that.
Twilight sat on her rump and screamed, while a strangely detached part of her brain examined her new body. It seemed ridiculously elongated and almost completely hairless. All four appendages ended in dexterous digits that seemed similar to an ape’s. Twilight didn’t remember any apes that were quite so tall or nearly so naked.
It was about that time that Twilight realized she was still wearing the bracelet and tried to get it off. Her - hands, if she remembered the term correctly - did not function intuitively, but she managed to smack the bracelet until it came off.
She was instantly back to being a pony and the screams stopped abruptly, being replaced by Pinkie giggling. “I’m glad you’re okay, Twilight, so we can all laugh about it.”
Twilight wanted to reprimand her, but Pinkie was right: she seemed perfectly fine. But now she wondered, what possible purpose could the aliens have in apparently turning other species into them?
“Dibs!” called Pinkie, and before Twilight could stop her, she grabbed another bracelet.
Twilight had to admit, it was fascinating to observe the change from the outside. She estimated the alien form might have retained approximately the same mass, but the limbs were longer and thinner.
She might not have recognized Pinkie had she not just seen the change, but the more she considered it, the more features started to emerge. The same blue eyes, the same poofy hairstyle. The colors were all wrong, though. It was like she’d had the pigment washed out.
Twilight vaguely remembered her own transformed skin being darker, though still not purple. Was it a function of the original coat color, keeping the shade but not the hue?
Pinkie giggled and ran her hands over her abdomen. “I’ve never felt anything like this before! You can actually touch stuff with your, er, touchers!”
“Pinkie, stop playing with yourself! You don’t know what any of that can do!” said Twilight.
“Okay, fine, geeze.” Pinkie took off the bracelet, instantly transforming back into a pony. She tossed the bracelet over her shoulder.
“Me next!” said Rainbow, catching it in midair. She slipped it on and promptly crashed to the floor, lack of wings being the likely reason why.
“Arg,” Rainbow muttered, rubbing her backside. Her eyes had turned to brown. Her hair, while still in a few different shades, had shifted to much more muted tones ranging from pale to dark.
“No wings?” Rainbow said, trying to turn her head far enough to look at her back. It only seemed to move about ninety degrees from center, and the narrow-set eyes couldn’t give her a much better view.
“No wings,” Twilight confirmed.
“This sucks,” said Rainbow, taking the bracelet off and tossing it down.
Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack hadn’t moved and seemed disinclined to try out the transformation.
“Okay,” said Twilight. “So, long story short, Nightmare Moon didn’t arrive like the prophecy said, an alien crash-landed in Equestria, and for some reason gave us jewelry that temporarily turns us into aliens. I…” she swallowed. “I could get a couple of books out of this. There’s so much knowledge to be gained! So many ways to ask ‘why’ and keep going until the barest, rawest truth is revealed!”
She immediately grabbed her notepad again and started scribbling. Fluttershy said, “But don’t you think we should find Spike first?”
“Right,” said Twilight, instantly deflating. “Princess Celestia needs to know before anything else.”
“We could go look for Spike,” said Applejack.
“I should probably stay here just in case he shows up,” said Twilight. “And girls? I think we should probably keep this to ourselves, at least until the Princess hears.”
The others agreed to that and said their goodbyes, leaving the library. Twilight was alone with the bracelets.
She waited two beats, but then curiosity got the better of her and she slipped one of them on again.
For proper notes, this would require extensive observation. Twilight got into what seemed a logical walking position and headed for the mirror in the bathroom. Her back felt unnaturally crooked and it seemed difficult to straighten her hind legs. Moreover, how was she supposed to tilt her head back far enough to see where she was going?
She made it to the bathroom, her feet and hands feeling cold on the tile, and stopped in front of the mirror, confirming what she suspected, that this body was much more lanky than a pony. She was only crouched and was still at roughly the same eye level.
Twilight frowned. She felt fairly comfortable sitting with her feet on the floor and her knees folded up to her chest. But then why were the legs so long? Was this a bipedal creature? How could that be possible with no tail for balance and such a spindly body?
She could find out later. Now was time for observation. Staring back at her from the mirror was a completely different creature. Her skin was a medium brown and her hair was darker. Somehow, despite the other changes, she’d retained her haircut. That seemed stranger than anything.
She didn’t have a horn. Twilight frowned, remembering how Rainbow’s wings had disappeared with the transformation. Pinkie, as an earth pony, hadn’t had either to lose. Perhaps these aliens did not have major subspecies.
This required notes, but Twilight realized she didn’t hear her quill scratching. Looking around, her notepad was nowhere in sight.
Looking out the bathroom door, she spotted it lying near where she’d changed. She willed it to come closer, but it remained on the floor. That was when Twilight realized that she couldn’t even feel an inkling of magic.
No magic, no flight...being an alien was kind of pointless.
Twilight put a hand to her chin. Or maybe she just hadn’t done enough research yet! For example, she didn’t know until that moment how fingers were so good at stroking chins.
She heard the front door open and slipped out of the bracelet. Back on hooves, she went into the front room where Rarity had found Spike. Or perhaps he had found her.
Before any of them could say anything, Spike belched out a letter. Twilight grabbed it reflexively. It was from Princess Celestia.
My faithful student,
I saw you in the crowd at the Ponyville town hall. I enjoyed myself and I thank you for your organizational help. I trust there was nothing out of the ordinary?
Well, there kind of was. Though Twilight wasn’t sure which she was was talking about. Princess Celestia had dismissed Twilight’s Nightmare Moon theory before sending her off to Ponyville. And who could have predicted aliens?
I also trust you made some friends. Be sure to get their contact information to keep in touch. When you rejoin me in Canterlot, I have a new assignment for you.
As curious as Twilight might have been about whatever the Princess had in store, it was difficult to let go of her current research project. She simply couldn’t imagine anything more interesting or important than studying aliens.
A sudden pang of anxiety went through her. But what if Princess Celestia didn’t believe her? She hadn’t believed Twilight about Nightmare Moon, and in Celestia’s eyes that theory had been proven false.
“Twilight, what’s wrong?” asked Spike.
“You’re hyperventilating, dear,” added Rarity.
“Spike, take a letter,” said Twilight. She frowned in annoyance at how long it took him to locate paper and a quill.
When he was ready, Twilight had managed to calm down and dictated, “Dear Princess Celestia, I would like to request an extension on my assignment here in Ponyville. I’ve made better friends than I could have ever imagined and I want to investigate further. I believe great strides in friendship research could be made to the benefit of all ponykind. Your studious student, Twilight Sparkle.”
Spike finished it and sent it away in a breath of fire. After only a moment, a reply came back. Spike read it. “Dear Twilight Sparkle, you request is...yada yada...legalese...doublespeak...granted. It’s granted.” He gave her the letter and yawned. “After all this Summer Sun Celebration celebrating, I think I need a nap.” He went upstairs.
“If I know Spike, he’s actually going to sleep to tomorrow noon.,” said Twilight. She looked at Rarity, who was looking right back rather strangely. “What?”
“Did you just...lie to Princess Celestia?”
“No! I absolutely did make great friends and I absolutely will do friendship research. I’m also going to continue to perform further study on alien artifacts. When I have enough to present on either topic, I will inform the Princess.” Twilight put on an incredibly fake smile.
“Am I an accessory just by being here?” asked Rarity.
“Um...possibly.”
Rarity sighed. “I haven’t known you long, but you are a good friend, Twilight. If you need something, just ask.”
“Funny you should mention that…”
Twilight had decided to let Spike sleep, but managed to gather her friends. They needed a quiet place where they wouldn’t be bothered, and decided on Fluttershy’s house outside of town near the forest.
“Okay girls,” said Twilight, unpacking the bracelets and her trusty notebook as the six of them stood in a loose circle in Fluttershy’s backyard.. “Let’s see what these things can do.”
“Do we have to?” asked Rainbow.
“I’m just gathering data,” said Twilight. “Don’t you want to see what kind of performance this physiology is capable of?”
“Well, I guess when you put it that way.”
Twilight convinced the group to transform and directed them to do a series of calisthenics to test strength, speed, flexibility, balance, and coordination.
The last two were more difficult to achieve. Fluttershy was the first to fall over and immediately yanked the bracelet off. “Ouch! I don’t think these bodies are very abrasion-resistant.”
“Hmm, interesting observation,” Twilight noted, pulling her aside. “What else can you tell me?”
Fluttershy was hesitant, but knowing Twilight was a willing listener, she began. “The bare skin implies a warmer climate and lack of protection. It’s possible they live somewhere where there isn’t a lot of brush, or they’re smart enough to avoid it.”
“Probably the latter based on their technology level,” said Twilight.
Fluttershy studied the rest as they kept exercising. Applejack and Rainbow Dash seemed to be in competition. Rarity was looking less and less enthusiastic, Pinkie more and more.
Twilight had a book on animal physiology and body structure and was leafing through it as she took notes. “It’s definitely a mammalian form, seemingly a kind of primate.”
“Are you saying we’re monkeys?” asked Rarity.
“Actually apes,” said Fluttershy. “No tail.”
Twilight wrote it down. Rarity came over, balancing awkwardly upright.
“Is that comfortable?” Twilight asked.
“Surprisingly. Not easy, but it feels...oh, natural?” Rarity’s arms were held out for balance, but she did look as if the alien body was supposed to be vertical.
“Apes can stand on two legs, but most of them don’t spend any length of time doing so,” said Fluttershy. “Not to mention their legs are much shorter.”
“Rarity, can you come over here?” Twilight asked. “I want to study the hands.” She went back to writing without looking up.
Rarity had already arrived, her fleshy feet silent on the ground. She only got Twilight's attention by tapping her shoulder.
“Oh, sorry,” said Twilight. “Can I see your hands?”
Rarity complied and knelt, coming down to pony level. She wobbled slightly, putting her arm out to brace against Twilight. The feel of Rarity's fingers on her withers gave Twilight the idea that these bodies were probably great at massages and ear-scratches.
Twilight examined Rarity's digits. The nails were small and looked relatively flimsy compared to hooves, but were probably great at scratching and handling tiny objects. “Could you pick this up?” Twilight asked, indicating a stone.
The small rock was completely enveloped by Rarity’s hand. Twilight was writing continuously. “How’s the motion prediction and kinematics?”
Rarity gave her a look that even translated with the alien face. “Sorry,” said Twilight. “Could you please toss the rock and catch it?”
It wasn’t any problem for Rarity, who even began to toss the stone from hand to hand.
“Okay,” said Twilight, “how about distance?”
Rarity stood and her arm came back, then whipping forward powered by the rest of her upper body. The rock flew into the trees, hitting one of them.
“Do it again,” commanded Twilight. “Try to aim for the same spot.”
Rarity threw more rocks, most of them hitting the same tree. Her face flushed with exertion, though she seemed surprised herself with how well the rocks flew.
“Amazing!” said Twilight. “The way the shoulder and elbow are jointed combined with twist of the torso and the precision of fingers means this body is practically made to throw things! I’ve never seen any creature besides a unicorn that could toss something with such accuracy. I wonder if the large cranium-to-body ratio has anything to do with it.”
Rainbow and Applejack came over, both breathing hard.
“Why would anypony want to be this?” said Rainbow. “These aliens are slow and top heavy, not mention weak.”
“I’ve already caught my breath, though,” said Applejack. “Maybe that says somethin’ about endurance.”
“All of those are astute observations,” said Twilight. “Anything else?”
Applejack sized up Rainbow. “With long arms and - whatchacallem - fingers, I bet they’d be real good at wrestlin.’”
“You want to go?” challenged Rainbow.
The two of them rolled away, each trying to pin the other and looking like a pile of spaghetti in motion with long, flailing limbs everywhere.
Pinkie sat there with a box of popcorn, apparently having no trouble eating with fingers. Her watching the wrestling match was interrupted by Twilight peering into her mouth.
“Eh?” Pinkie asked, mouth wide open.
“Fluttershy, come take a look,” said Twilight.
Pinkie now had two ponies examining the inside of her mouth. Her eyes darted around, trying to figure out a good way to keep eating popcorn.
“Omnivorous teeth,” said Fluttershy. “Though rather smaller than I expected.”
“Why do you say that?” Twilight asked.
“Ungh,” Pinkie contributed, mouth still open.
Fluttershy answered Twilight’s question. “Well, if it’s like an ape, they’re omnivorous yet they usually have some larger canines.”
They let Pinkie go back to her popcorn. Twilight consulted the data she already had. “I think it’s pretty clear we have some sort of female mammal here. Then again, we are female mammals, so I think we need further data points.”
“Spike?” suggested Rarity.
“That might be interesting, but he’s all the way back in town,” said Twilight.
Applejack and Rainbow paused their exertion long enough for Applejack to pipe up, “Big Macintosh is just over yonder on the farm. I’ll go get him.”
She untangled herself from Rainbow. Both of them were dirty and scraped, starting to bruise. Applejack slipped the bracelet off and trotted away for the farm.
The others took their bracelets off and were back to normal by the time Applejack appeared with her brother.
“Just need some help with a science experiment,” Applejack was saying. “Here, put this on.”
She’d slipped the bracelet on Big Macintosh’s hoof before he could utter a word. Strangely, it seemed to alter in size to fit his much larger hooves.
Speaking of much larger, the alien version of him was larger than any of the girls, conforming to Twilight that many characteristics were preserved, as if the bracelets were attempting to portray them as if they’d always been in that form.
Big Macintosh was probably not thinking about that, instead focusing on a completely unexpected transformation into an entirely different body.
“Interesting,” said Twilight. “I can definitely see a lot more muscle definition. I don’t know if that’s an effect of the gender or just because it’s Big Macintosh. Speaking of gender, the penis is rather small in proportion to the body and comparatively streamlined and featureless, so I expect intercourse in this species is mutual.”
“C-can I…” said Big Macintosh.
“Oh, right,” said Twilight. “Thanks for your help. You can go.”
He immediately did, shucking the bracelet and hastily cantering away.
“Well, it’s been a solid day of information collection,” said Twilight. “I’ll have to go back to the library and do some more research and start drawing conclusions. Could you all meet me there tomorrow morning?”
“Only if you agree to do that to Spike without warning him first,” giggled Pinkie.
Twilight headed back to town. Spike was awake when she arrived, but she didn’t have quite enough material to present as a clear hypothesis just yet. He brought her a few books when she asked.
Twilight stayed up late that evening. She kept meaning to call it a night, but kept drawing new conclusions. As it got later, Spike went to bed again, leaving her up and alone at her desk.
By the next morning, Twilight’s eyes were bloodshot and she still wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to tell her friends when they arrived.
The group of them gathered around the conference room table. Pinkie was first to ask, “So what kind of cool stuff did you figure out last night?”
“Well, we’ve already covered the basics yesterday,” said Twilight. “They’re warm-blooded mammals, primate in-”
“Simple version?” Applejack cut in.
Twilight summarized, “Basically chimpanzees, except weaker, naked, and with bigger brains and longer legs.”
“Monkeys,” said Rainbow.
“Not exactly, apes,” said Fluttershy.
“Did you find out anything else?” asked Rarity. “As it was, I had begun to wonder if there was anything special about them. They can’t fly, can’t do magic, they have tender skin.”
“Slow, puny,” Rainbow added.
Twilight summarized. “Basically, they’re better at throwing things than everypony except unicorns. They’re probably good at climbing but not as good as pegasi can fly. Their endurance is good, but it would take miles and miles before they could eventually outrun a faster creature. They’re only suited to warm climates. Obviously, they’re intelligent and tool-using if they invented space travel. I’ve also decided that they’re probably predators.”
“They do have forward-facing eyes and small ears like they aren’t worried about being snuck up on,” said Fluttershy, “but what about the small teeth?”
“I believe they eat compliant food,” said Twilight.
“What does that mean?” asked Applejack.
“It’s dead. Using large brains to build weapons and dexterous hands to wield them, they hunt, kill, and cut up prey into bite-size pieces.”
There was a deep silence around the table.
“But if they’re not very strong or fast, how are they supposed to catch anything?” argued Rainbow.
“Endurance,” Twilight replied.
“But you said it would take a long time.”
“Right. On a diet of meat, they have more than enough calories to burn to keep going and going. And if they couldn’t get meat, they’re omnivorous.”
“They couldn’t catch me,” said Rainbow. “I would just fly up to a cloud.”
“I don’t think you understand,” said Twilight. “Based on the energy calculations, I think they could keep this up literally all day, or even days. You’d eventually get have to come down to eat.”
“I’m too fast,” Rainbow argued.
“Right, but for how long could you keep up your fastest pace? You’d tire out even quicker in a hot climate, which these aliens seem adapted to. Plus, even if you weren’t close enough to catch, they seem to have an innate sense of using projectiles. If they happened to invent bow and arrow technology…” Twilight shook her head. “No, wait, they’re already way past that. If they wanted to, I'm sure they could wipe us all out with space lasers or something.” Her eyes twitched. It was partially lack of sleep, partially the implications of what she'd hypothesized.
Attempting to change the subject, Rarity pointed out, “None of this explains why that alien gave us these bracelets. Why do they want us to turn into them?”
“I don’t know,” said Twilight. “But honestly? I...I think I’d rather be on the good side of creatures suited for long-term pursuit that eat meat.”
“O-or plants,” Fluttershy hastily added.
“I hope so,” said Twilight.