"What are you saying, Brandon?" Fail Safe asked, glaring at him with a gaze that could melt birds.
Brandon looked like a deer in headlights. "I-I may have t-told someone." He stammered, stepping backwards.
"You did or you didn't?" Fail Safe demanded, stepping closer.
"I-I did."
"Explain. Now." Fail Safe demanded, his horn started to glow.
"Back off of him, Fail Safe." Connie said, pushing him back with a hoof. "Humans are social creatures."
"So?" Fail Safe said, not removing his gaze from Brandon.
"He was just trying to not deal with this alone." Connie explained.
"It doesn't excuse him for jeopardizing the mission." Fail Safe said. "This shit slips out, we die. Why shouldn't I just pop this kid right now and save ourselves the hassle?"
"Because if you kill him, we still have another person that knows of our existence. What happens when someone notices that he's missing, Fail Safe?" Connie asked. "Even worse, what happens when they find his body? I'd rather they find an alive Brandon than a dead one."
"I like the one that involves me not dying." Brandon said.
Fail Safe glared at him and Connie was just laughing. Brandon glared at her which shut her up pretty quickly. Her form deflated slightly.
Fail Safe turned to Brandon again and spoke. "So what's stopping you from telling more people or reporting us to the authorities?"
Fail Safe's horn had stopped glowing, but Brandon either didn't notice or didn't care. "You," Brandon said, pointing at Connie, "Are a being from Greek Mythology. Your race does not exist here and you're the first one I've ever seen."
"How is this relevant?" Fail Safe asked.
"I'm getting to that." Brandon said. "If I were to say there were one of you in my house, they wouldn't believe me. Better yet, if I were to mention there's two unicorn, two pegasi, and a talking pony in my house, they'd probably pass it off as a joke and tell me to stop wasting their time."
"Wouldn't they still send some people over here just to make sure?"
"Worst case scenario, yeah. They'd send a few people over here to make sure I was okay. Even then, you'd probably fuck off when the police arrived to check it out." He explained. "Oh, and distracting the entire team isn't going to happen either. I've seen what you guys do; you have at least one of you set up to keep watch. Usually it's her." Brandon said, pointing at Connie.
"Okay," Fail Safe said, sitting down. "Wait, who did you even tell?"
"Why didn't we ask that in the first place?" Leading Edge asked. "That would've been some pretty important information to know."
Fail Safe started tracing a circle on the floor with a hoof. "It didn't seem relevant at the time I guess."
"Well," Leading Edge said, looking at Fail Safe. "I guess now would be a good time to find out. Brandon," He said, moving his gaze to the familiar human. "Who did you tell?"
"Well, it's not really that importa-" He managed to say before being cut off.
"WHO DID YOU TELL?" Lea shouted, moving towards Brandon.
"J-Jake." Brandon stammered. "I have a friend named Jake and I told him a little bit ago."
"How long is a little bit ago?" Fail Safe asked.
"I-I forgot." He said. "Probably several hours ago, but I don't know."
Lea sighed and put a hoof to his face. "We gotta go, team. We don't know how long we have until this guy gets here."
The team quickly mobilized, walking past Brandon in their journey to the exit. "I'm sorry this didn't end well." Connie said as she passed him. Her eyes were glossy and she wore a frown on her face. As they approached the door, they heard a muffled thump from somewhere outside.
Upon hearing the sound, the entire team froze in place. The entire team turned to Brandon, who was still sitting in his arm chair. "What was that, Brandon?" Fail Safe asked.
"Sounded like a car door." He said, getting out of his chair to peak through the window.
"Is it Jake, Brandon?" Fail Safe inquired.
He parted the curtains slightly to view a small sliver of the world. "It looks like his car. I can't see him though."
"Well, this guy better be friendly. If not, that's it for both of you." Fail Safe said. "I'm not a fan of doing this, but I'm afraid we don't really have any other options. Please don't make us do this, Brandon. I'm sure you're a nice guy, but right now, we can't be taking risks."
"It sucks being held at gun point, that's for sure." Brandon said. "Jake is friendly, but I'm not sure how he'll react when he sees you. He might be overzealous or he might not care at all. I don't actually know."
Fail Safe looked thoughtful for a moment before commenting. "So be wary of him until he does something that could be construed as hostile?"
Brandon started making his way towards the door. "I guess, yeah. Just don't kill him, okay?" After a small pause, he unlocked the door and opened it.
"Alright Brandon, where are these totally legit ponies you've told me about?" Jake joked. "You could've at least tried to fool me with this one, du-" He said before stopping dead in his tracks. Before him were five ponies, all covered in black tactical gear. Each had furrowed brows, pressed lips, stiff stances, and heads raised.
It took him a while to recover, but when he did, it was odd. He laughed. It started with a few giggles, then transitioned to laughs, and settled upon cackling. It lasted for several seconds, everyone was too stunned to say anything in fear of shattering this man's perception of reality. The laughing would die down, but would quickly pick up again when he caught sight of the team. Once he finally gained enough composure to stop laughing for more than five seconds, he spoke.
"Oh, Brandon." He said between giggles. "Brandon, Brandon, Brandon. What have you done to deserve such a cruel fate?"
"What are you talking about, Jake?"
"You sounded like you were about to piss yourself when you called me." He put to hands up to his face in mock fear. "Oh, woe-is-me. I have five small horses in my house. Whatever shall I do?"
"Jake, stop." Fail Safe said, breaking between the two.
Jake looked at Fail Safe, and immediately started laughing again. "Oh," He said. "Oh my God. They talk too? This is too fucking good."
"I'm seriously starting to regret calling you over here, dude."
"I'm not. This is great." Jake said, wiping a tear from his eye. "So what did you want me over here for, anyway?"
"Well, we were just about to leave, but we just recently found out that Brandon here invited you without our knowledge." Leading Edge said, taking a few steps forward.
Jake pretended to think for a moment. "So how did you guys plan on traveling and where are you going to?"
"Well, we were planning on just going on hoof until we reached a train. Our destination isn't important to you, Jake." Fail Safe said.
"On hoof?" Jake scoffed. "I don't know where you're headed to, pal, but I don't think you understand just how large this world is. We don't have trains that can scale the map in a day, my little ponies. In this world, trains are meant for transporting large amount of materials and resources long distances. They probably take weeks to months to get from one side of the country to the other." He threw his hands up. "I have no idea how long it'd take, but it won't be a day."
"Time is not important here. What's important is getting from point A to point B without being detected."
Jake let out a little chuckle. "Excluding going on hoof, going on a train is probably the worst option you could've gone with." He shifted his weight onto another leg and crossed his arms. "Someone might spot you on your way to the train. If you even get on the train, the difficulty doesn't end there. There's frequent security checks along the way. If you get spotted, you're as good as dead."
"So?" Fail Safe asked. "What's your idea then?"
"A car." Jake said simply. "It can go anywhere there's roads and it's sitting outside."
"What about security?"
"As long as you don't stick your face out in the open, you'll be fine."
"I'm just going to squeeze in here real quick, Jake." Leading Edge said. "I'm going to have a quick chat with the team here." He said, ushering the team out of the room.
"What?" Connie said once the door closed.
"Can we trust him?" Lea asked.
"I don't like him much. No respect." Fail Safe said.
"Well, we don't know if it's respectful or not to act that way." Connie said. "This is a different world entirely. For all we know, what he's doing could be incredibly respectful." She shrugged. "I like him. He's quite charming in a way." She received a few odd looks from that. "No, not in that way! I mean, he's got a bit of humor to him."
"God knows we have enough humor as it is." Fail Safe said. "But can we trust him? I don't care if he's charismatic, good looking, or that he shares a birthday with you. What stops him from lying to us and fucking this entire mission up?"
"Good looking?" Connie said, raising an eyebrow.
"Not important." Fail Safe said. "It was just an example." He paused. "Before you ask, no, I'm not attracted to him. He's not good looking and he obviously doesn't take care of himself. You saw how skinny he was." He started pacing. "Anyways, as I was saying, how can we trust him?"
"I mean, he doesn't really have a reason to lie to us." Connie said, shrugging. "I don't know."
"What do you mean he doesn't have a reason to lie to us? You don't know that!" Fail Safe shot back.
"Can we stop arguing please?" Deep Thought asked. "I've had a lie detection spell placed on Brandon for a while now and I cast another spell when Jake entered. Neither of them have lied yet."
"Do you know if that spell works on them?" Lea asked.
"Yes, I tested the lie detection spell and a few others on them. I got Brandon to tell a lie" He said, making air quotes with his hooves. "Once and the spell tripped."
"What's with the air quotes?"
"I used some psychology tricks on him and I got him to lie. Sort of." Deep Thought said, bobbing his head slightly. "He technically lied."
"Alright," Leading Edge said, "Anyone else have any reasons why we should or shouldn't trust him?" He looked around the room. "Okay, so that settles it. We can trust him."