//------------------------------//
// Politely Exiting the Home of an Undesirable Host with Aplomb and Alacrity 
// Story: Vacation to a Pleasant Country Retreat 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
//------------------------------//

The silence abided for a few moments longer. “D’ya reckon it’s safe now?” Mac asked.
Rarity scrunched up her face. “Probably,” she conceded, dropping the shield spell she’d managed to construct.
Ditzy shook herself. “Another test, I guess,” she said. “They’re getting more dangerous.”
As if on cue, there was another whirring, crunching sound. Ditzy closed her eyes. “Again?” she asked.
“And a bit faster, this time,” Rarity observed, starting to trot quickly along the hall.
Mac shuddered. “Reckon they’re testin’ us ta breakin’ point,” they said grimly, starting up at a canter, Ditzy taking to the air a few moments later.
“The question is, why?” Ditzy asked. “Why do any of this?”
“Research?” Mac guessed.
“For an invasion, I assume,” Rarity agreed, nervously glancing between the ever-encroaching walls and the end of the hallway. “I doubt it’s entirely coincidental that this lot managed to pick up three representatives of ponykind and come up with a unicorn, a pegasus, and an earth pony. They want to see what makes each of us different, I suppose.”
“Okay, maybe, but why teleport us to the moon?”
“They didn’t,” Mac said shortly.
Ditzy nearly fell out of the air. “What?”
“Hurry, darlings~” Rarity sang, her nerves eminently obvious in her tone.
“Right,” Ditzy said, soaring over the heads of her friends and landing in the adjoining hallway. Rarity galloped through a moment later, and Mac squeezed through at the last moment.
“A’ight,” the red pony said. “Now, Ah know we ain’t on th’ moon.”
“How?” Rarity asked.
“‘Bout what size is th’ moon?”
Ditzy thought. “About… one-sixth the size of Gaea?”
“Smaller mass?”
“Well, yes.”
“So, shouldn’t we be feelin’ a heckuva lot lighter?” Mac bounced up and down to demonstrate. “Gravity changes based on mass an’ distance, an’ we’re on th’ surface of a mass that oughta be a whole lot smaller’n we’re used ta.”
Ditzy was quiet, staring into space. “So, what you’re saying is…”
“We ain’t even left th’ planet, is my guess,” Mac said with a nod. “Help me take down this here wall, Ah got a couple suspicions ‘bout what’s back there.”
All of a sudden, a malevolent clicking sound echoed down the hallway. Three heads whipped around to see a tide of silver flowing toward them on thousands and thousands of little metal legs. Rarity screamed. Ditzy blinked in surprise. Mac turned and bucked a metal panel from the wall. It fell, bent, to the ground, revealing a sheer rock wall behind it. The farmer nodded. “‘Spected as much,” Mac grunted. Then picking up the bent piece of metal, they hurled it back at the oncoming swarm. “Run!” Mac barked, turning tail and galloping. “Look fer a window!”
The mares didn’t need to be told twice. They followed their friend away from the robot army at top speed. But already, they could hear little clacks and clicks echoing from other halls. They needed a way out, and quickly at that. They needed a miracle. They needed
“A window!” Rarity shouted, pointing down a hall. She made a hairpin turn, galloping toward the image of the lunar surface that was displayed there.
“Rares, wait!” Mac bellowed, but she didn’t listen. She kept running and running until she was grabbed bodily by the tail and yanked back. A second later, one of the crabs landed where she would have been standing.
The alabaster unicorn swallowed and glanced back. “Thank you, Ditzy darling.”
“Can ya put up a shield an’ run with it?” Mac asked. The clattering from down the hall was getting louder, now, more insistent.
“I… no…” Rarity said slowly. “No, but I think… Buck off another bit of the wall, please?”
Mac nodded, then spun on his forehooves and smacked the metal of the wall. Rarity looked it over carefully and nodded. “It will do.” She levitated it over her head and ushered the others in more closely. “Now,” she said. “Run!”
Little metal crabs bounced off the makeshift shield like rain off an umbrella as the trio galloped for the end of the hall. They attacked from all sides, too, but between Ditzy’s frantic flapping and Mac’s powerful kicks, they were beaten away before they could get a firm fix on any of them. Eventually, they had fought their way to the window, and with their flanks to the cold glass, they continued to bat away the attackers. “Macintosh!” Rarity shouted over the now deafening din of metal clicking against metal. “Get us out of here!”
“EEYUP!”
Hooves toned by years of applebucking lashed against the glass, creating small fractures. Another impact, and the fine white crack lines covered half the window. One final bucking kick. One final crack. The window shattered, and the illusory moon fell away to reveal a dirt hole, rolling green hills and an opal-blue sky. Rarity waved the others through, then followed close after, using the metal sheet to seal off the hole behind them.
There was a long moment of tense silence as they stared at the revealed pane of glass in the side of the hill that they had just left. No skittering metal crabs emerged. After a moment, Rarity began to chuckle. It was the sort of exuberant, gleeful laugh that springs from sheerest exhaustion. After a moment, Ditzy began to laugh, too, followed by Mac. The big red pony rolled over, belly to the sky, halfway between guffaws and tears. The three sat there for several seconds, exulting in the sunshine after the artificial light of the subterranean labyrinth.
Eventually, however, laughter dissolved into faint wheezing and eventual silence. Rarity spoke first. “That’s far from the last of them.”
“... Eenope.”
Ditzy hauled herself upright, her expression grim and taut. “Right. This might have gone a little beyond anything we can handle. We need a professional.”




The Doctor carefully lowered the teakettle onto the table. Fancy Pants stared at it, incredulous. “Have you ever seen the like?” he asked quietly, shaking his head.
“Similar,” the Doctor replied, not glancing away from the kettle. “But I’ll admit, this fellow is quite new to me.
Fleur shut the door to the lab behind her as she trotted in once more. “Ze sergeant ‘as been incarcerated for ze time being,” she said crisply. “Doctor. You will tell me what ‘as ‘appened to my soldier.”
The tan stallion nodded. “Gladly. As soon as I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”
Fleur raised an eyebrow, her expression stormy. Fancy, sensing a brewing row, interceded. “How did you both know she was being controlled?”
At last, the Time Lord looked up from the kettle. “Well,” he began, “The first problem was, she was a unicorn. I’ve never known a unicorn to hold anything in their mouths when they could use magic. So, either GUIDE has a unicorn who can’t use magic, which I suppose isn't out of the question, or that unicorn has suddenly lost the ability to use magic. Then, there was her cutie mark.”
Fancy blinked. “Her cutie mark?”
“Didn’t you notice?” Fleur asked mildly. “It was a stylized hexagon, grey, metallic-looking. Very much unusual for a cutie mark, no? Especially given zat, last I knew, she ‘ad ze mark of a bullseye. But not unlike our little friend in ze teakettle.”
“Exactly,” the Doctor agreed. “Which suggests a couple of things to me. First, the less likely scenario; that crab is controlling her actions.”
Fancy frowned. “That doesn’t seem too unlikely to me,” he commented.
“Not on the surface, no,” the Doctor agreed. “But it doesn’t account for the cutie mark change. However, that leads me to a much more troubling conclusion.”
Fleur frowned. “And zat is?”
“They’re switching out their minds.” The Doctor’s face was cold and hard as steel used to build a polar research facility. “These little beasts are putting their own brains in equine bodies, and vice-versa. You don’t have the good Sergeant Steady locked up, Commander. They do.”
Fleur’s face, normally marble-like in its composure, pallor, and coolness, now bore more resemblance to molten lava. “Zey have one of my soldiers?” she whispered.
Fancy’s tail flicked as he glanced at Fleur, unsure as to whether he should address his wife or his superior. “Er, Fleur,” he began.
The commander of a global organization and world-famous fashion model spun to stare straight into Fancy’s monocled eye. “Zey have taken one of my soldiers,” she whispered. “Soon, zey shall find all ze rest at their doorstep, I assure you. Doctor! Where are zey based?”
The tan stallion shrugged helplessly. “Search me. Even if we assume this fellow is part of a larger invasion force, as I believe we safely can, that really doesn’t determine anything about where the rest of them might be hidden. Unless…” he lapsed into pensive silence.
“Doctor…” Fleur warned.
“Hang about, let me try something. No promises, mind, but…” The Doctor opened the top of the kettle. The robot inside renewed its scrabbling efforts to escape, but the Doctor disregarded its struggle. He merely pulled out his sonic and aimed it at the little robot. There was a brilliant blue light and a hum. Slowly, the Doctor started to grin. “Hah! The little buggers have a hive mind!”
Fancy coughed. “Forgive me my ignorance, Doctor, but how does that help us?”
Fleur frowned thoughtfully. “Could we use zis knowledge to… track down ze rest of zese little beasts?”
“Oh, yes,” the Doctor agreed. “The other signals are mostly bundled up together in a large area not far from here… about forty miles. About the same distance as…” he froze. “Ponyville.”
There was a long moment of silence. Fancy Pants exhaled through his nostrils. “I’ll get a carriage,” he sighed. “Really, I don’t know why we’re surprised...”




Lily reclined on an armchair. Daisy and Carrot Top shared the chaise longue. Rose lay slumped on the floor, beyond caring about propriety. Spike clutched his head in his talons. “Gah,” he groaned. “I can’t— just, I— everything I say, it’s just— GAH!”
Daisy shrugged weakly. “It’s just her way,” she said.
“Her way,” Spike repeated hollowly. “It’s ‘her way’ to completely ignore everything said by anyone and in doing so, knock over Rarity’s newly completed dress? Rearrange all of her hats? Moreover—”
“Oh, Mr. Spike,” a voice sang from the other room. “Would you be so good as to inform me of the nature of— Why, Daddy! I didn’t expect to see you here!”
Spike looked at the assembled mares askance.
“Father ran off after breakfast,” Daisy said shortly. “We sent Civil off to look for him.”
“Does he often do that?”
The response was cut short by a sudden shriek from the other room. The assembled shared worried glances, then all ran out into the main floor of the boutique. “Ech,” Spike grumbled as something crunched underfoot like a large bug. Then he realized exactly how large of a bug that would have to be. “What the—”
Lily, Daisy, and Rose screamed. Carrot Top looked more than a little alarmed herself. The Boutique was crawling with little silver robots. Spike blinked. Then, recovering himself, he spun around, whipping his tail at the little creatures. Silvery crabs flew across the room like baseballs.
In the center of the chaos, Hyacinth was balanced precariously atop a ponnequin, her sunhat tilting over her face. The mare was whimpering slightly and staring at the other figure in the room. The elderly stallion’s face was blank and his eyes were empty. “...Daddy?” Rose called, dubious.
“No, look at his flank,” Carrot said, pointing. Instead of the usual stylized poppies that made their place there, a pair of metallic hexagons occupied the stallion’s hindquarters.
The geriatric stared blankly at his children, then advanced slowly toward them, picking up one of the crabs in the process.