Incoming Comm Request; addressed to Starship Athena. Allowing initial connection; letting it ring.
“Eeek!”
Bonbon glances at Fluttershy, before turning to Lyra, who’d just let out an almost strangled cry- out of nowhere, no less. “What is it?”
The unicorn’s horn glows gently, then drops back down. “It’s- Somepony powerful is coming. Gotta be an Alicorn, even Starlight is nowhere near this strong- but I don’t recognize the signature.”
“Could it be Discord?”
Shake. “No- even he isn’t nearly as strong as an alicorn. He just… I don’t know. Maybe he manipulates the ambient fields, or maybe he casts with greater efficiency, bit in terms of absolute power, he’s actually not that much stronger than me.”
“Drat! What’re we gonna do about it?”
“Her,” Lyra corrects. “Definitely a female signature.”
“Wait. How’s she compare to the Princesses?”
“Uh… about as strong as Twilight, right now.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah. It looks kinda like something drained her recently, and she’s regenerating or something. No clue what her upper limit will be, though.” Smile. “Except the obvious: High.”
“So, what’re we gonna do about her, then?”
“Um,” Fluttershy squeaks. “Maybe we should be nice?”
Lyra nods. “Exactly what I was thinking, yes. Both from an equine standpoint, and from a logical standpoint. With as much power as I’m picking up already, she’s probably our only way back home… and the last thing we want to do is create a negative first impression.”
“How do you suppose we do that?” Bonbon asks.
“Treat her with respect,” Lyra answers simply. “It’s probably safe to assume this ‘Starship Athena’ is her domain, for the time being- and I have no clue whether she came from Equestria or not.” She sighs. “We can only hope that, if she came from somewhere else, our cultures are close enough for her to recognize our efforts.”
“So, let me get this straight,” Bonbon states. “An Alicorn Princess is about to walk through that door, and we’re going to bow down to her?”
“Uhh… I don’t know that she’s an alicorn, no… but very probably, yes. And bowing down does seem to be the best course of action, at least until we learn more about her.”
“What if she attacks us? Imprisons us?”
“Then we’re screwed. I don’t have the power to fight much of anything with this much ambient energy, let alone an alicorn that can no-doubt overpower me with half a thought! If you’ve got a better plan, voice it- but otherwise, she’ll be coming through that door any second now.” She indicates the door in front of them.
“Any second?” Bonbon asks. “She vague or something?”
She shakes her head. “No- she stopped for something, just barely short of the door.”
Then the door opens, revealing-
None of the three ponies continue looking long enough to see anything beyond Alicorn!
All three, in perfect sync, bow down to the unknown. “We beg your pardon, Princess, for our trespass against your territory,” they speak. Fluttershy, despite shivering harder than the ground in a dragon stampede, managed to match the other two mares’ pitch, tone, and volume almost perfectly.
The alicorn says something none of them understand.
“Any clue what she’s saying?” Bonbon whispers to Lyra, out the corner of her mouth.
“I think I heard the ship’s name,” Lyra responds in similar manner. “Beyond that, no clue.”
Then the voice in the wall responds.
“I hope it’s translating,” Bonbon whispers.
“Me too,” Lyra reciprocates. “Accurately.”
The alicorn says something short in response to the voice in the wall, but not one pony misses the note of incredulity in her voice.
“Uh-oh,” Lyra whispers.
The voice in the wall responds dispassionately.
“Should we run for it?” Bonbon whispers.
“No!” Lyra responds, almost loud enough for Fluttershy- or, Celestia forbid, the Alicorn- to hear.
The alicorn groans. More than one pony flinches. The alicorn continues talking.
“We can’t run now, all that’d do is make things worse!” Lyra whispers back at Bonbon, just a little quieter than before.
“But- but-!” Bonbon whispers back, while the voice answers the alicorn.
Then the voice switches to Equestrian. “She says to-” something incomprehensible “-and-” incomprehensible “-Princess.”
Nopony moves.
She walks steadily towards the medbay. She’d be moving faster, except for one reason: Every time she tried, she only managed to fall down. “They’re all in here?” she asks.
“Affirmative.”
“And all healed up?”
“Affirmative. At this time, the Unicorn’s painkiller wear-off is approximately forty-eight percent complete.”
“Meaning, the painkillers will stop messing with her magic soon?”
“Affirmative. Thaumic interference is down to ninety-seven percent of peak. Full recovery is expected in three point two hours. Note: The unicorn appears to have detected your approach.”
She nods. “Yeah… Probably the same way I can feel them.” She shudders. “I probably should have waited for the Alicorn transformation. All these extra senses are just… confusing.” Then she stops, looking back at her mane. “Wait. What the-?”
As she watches, her mane- which had been draping rather nicely down the side of her neck- finishes lifting itself off, blowing in some kind of invisible wind.
“What in the world…? Athena, why’s my mane… doing this?”
“Ethereality of the Mane and Tail appears to be a subconscious effect of high internal thaumic density.”
“Oh. Um… Yeah, that’s going to be even more distracting than sensing the magic around me. How do I turn it off?”
“Simulations suggest effect can be disabled at will, and will not re-enable without a decision to do so.”
“It can be? Awesome!” She closes her eyes and concentrates for a second- and within moments, she feels her mane settle back against her neck, where it had been before. A quick glance confirms this feeling- and that her tail has also stopped waving like that as well. “Alright. I think I’m ready to meet them. You ready to play translator?”
“Affirmative.”
“Alright.” She positions herself behind the door, takes a deep breath. “Open the door.”
The door slides open.
She’s instantly greeted with three bundles of cuteness, practically kissing the floor as they say something in perfect sync with each other. The only flaw to the performance is that all three of them seem to be shivering- the green one the least, and the yellow the most.
Oh, and she hasn’t a clue what they’re saying.
She blinks, then turns her head slightly to the side. “Um, Athena? What are they doing? And what did they say?”
“They appear to be showing reverence; comparable to human bowing. Approximate translation follows: We are sorry, [female royalty], for our trespass of your territory.”
“Female royalty?” she asks incredulously.
“Word used is ambiguous between ‘Queen’ and ‘Princess’.”
She lets out a groan, planting a hoof rather painfully into her face. “Ugh… Tell them to relax, or something. And deny my royal status. We’ve obviously got a major cultural barrier to overcome.”
“Orders confirmed.” It then says something she doesn’t understand in the slightest.
Nothing happens. The yellow one’s quaking seems to increase, but other than that, absolutely nothing.
She waits a few seconds, before glancing sideways. “Uh… why’s nothing happening? Did they not understand?”
“Unknown.”
“Uh… So, tell them to rest easy? Rise? Look up? Do something other than nothing? They’re making me uneasy.”
“Orders confirmed.” It says something more she doesn’t understand.
Again, absolutely no response. Save an increase in the shivering.
She sighs, her wings sagging. Then she walks up to the pegasus, reaching out with a wing to gently pull up on the pony’s chin.
She’d intended to help the pony see her smile, but the moment her wing touched, the pegasus… disappeared. With a faint squeak.
She’s pretty sure the pegasus went behind that hospital bed.
She sighs, and moves to the next pony- the cream-colored one. The earth pony.
The earth pony also disappears as soon as she touches, though with a louder scream- and a distinctive crash halfway down the room. The unicorn glances quickly back, before returning to her prior, staring-contest-with-the-floor position, this time quaking hard enough to make her hooves rattle against the floor.
She plants a wing in her face this time, for much less pain. “I’m scaring them to death, aren’t I?”
“Negative.”
“And you interpreted that literally, didn’t you?”
“Affirmative.”
She sighs, and moves to the last pony in the line, crouching down to put her head on a level with the unicorn’s, rather than trying to touch. She does make sure she’s below the level of the horn; she’d rather not be accidentally skewered if the unicorn has a similar reaction to the other two. Especially in one of her ridiculously gigantic eyes.
“Um, hello?” she begins, sliding closer. She’s not sure exactly how close she can get without being too close. “Are you listening?” A little closer. “Say something?”
She holds her position as best she can.
The Princess had talked to the voice in the wall some more- and she’d picked up agitation in the Princess’ voice. She’s not sure what kind- though it very possibly could be annoyance.
Then the voice had spoken Equestrian again. Unfortunately, whatever it said began with “She says to” and ended with “Nothing”, but everything in between was incomprehensible.
Then the Princess had moved, first down to Fluttershy. She’d hoped the Princess had decided the voice wasn’t translating properly, and was trying to communicate by nonverbal means- only for first Fluttershy, then Bonbon, to emit a squeak- or, in Bonbon’s case, a scream- and disappear.
She’d expected that from Fluttershy, but not from the seasoned Agent. She’d actually glanced up, back where Bonbon had disappeared to, for a moment, when that surprised her.
Then she’d returned to her original position, praying their flights hadn’t offended the Princess, and vowing to make Bonbon pay for making her take the brunt of the Princess’ punishment.
Unless said Princess did that first.
In any case, even as she trembles so hard she’s having difficulty keeping her hooves from clattering, she has a translation spell prepared in her horn. She doesn’t feed it power, though; this kind of spell, if uninvited, would be a very fast way to earn the Princess’ enmity. It does, after all, penetrate her target’s mind, duplicate any and all knowledge of language it finds, and bring that back to her.
But in the event it is requested, at least she’s already got all the preparatory stages done- the parts that can take as much as five or ten seconds, depending. She’s had it waiting ever since the voice in the wall failed to translate.
The Princess seems to be saying something from up close. Her voice sounds confused.
The Princess moves closer, says something else. She sounds a little worried now.
Even closer, another short sentence. She sounds almost plaintive.
She’s trying to decide how to respond- she’s virtually certain the Princess is asking for a response- when the Princess moves even closer, and something touches the tip of her horn.
Instantly, pain lashes through her horn. She can tell that what touched her horn was not a hoof, but another magic horn; probably the Princess’ horn… and probably unintentionally. She thrusts her spell matrix forwards in her horn, allowing it to absorb the power surge even as she recoils, thrusting herself- and her head- backwards, screaming in pain. At the same time, the Princess seems to recoil, causing the contact to break off quickly.
Moments later, she feels her spell complete, only barely holding itself together in the process. But at least she successfully dumped that dangerous surge elsewhere; judging by the amount of energy left in the spell after it completed its task, before it dispersed itself to the local magic field, that surge easily carried enough power to kill her. Enough uncontrolled power.
The horn-splitting pain doesn’t go away right away.
Through her own scream, she hears the princess talking. “Owowow- What-! She’s- Athena!”
The voice in the walls responds. “Medical Regenerator initializing. Administering painkillers now. Full recovery expected in three point two four days.”
Then, almost as fast as it had come, the pain fades away. Not entirely- but it’s down to something only a little worse than it was when she first woke up. She carefully brushes her mane back with one hoof, slowly opening her eyes to focus on the tip of her horn.
It’s shattered. The top quarter or so of her horn has shattered, the thaumic channel inside split like string cheese. “M-my…” she begins. “My horn.”
“Full recovery expected in three point two four days,” the voice in the walls repeats.
Then the Princess speaks up. “You mentioned a Medical Regenerator. What is that?” She sounds stern, almost angry.
She blinks, glancing over at the Princess before resuming her bow. “S-sorry!”
The voice in the wall answers. “The Medical Regenerator generates a Medical Regeneration Field over the entirety of this vessel, currently tuned to ponies. While inside this field, natural bodily regenerative processes are overridden and overclocked, allowing rapid healing, including regeneration of otherwise non-regenerable damages, such as lost limbs. Rapid healing process has been demonstrated to significantly increase the appetite of the affected, and is slower than most other methods of biological repair.”
“And you selected it… why?”
“The nature of the damage to the Unicorn’s horn makes it irreparable by other means, including natural healing. Insufficient data has been collected on the workings of the Unicorn Horn for assembly of a functional prosthetic.”
“... Ahh. Makes sense.” Pause. “And is it just me, or did she speak English?”
“Affirmative.”
A momentary pause, before the princess comes closer. “Uhh… I take it that means you can understand me now?” Not nearly as close as before the surge.
She nods slightly.
“Ahh. There’s no need to be afraid, then- I’m not going to be hurting anyone.” A momentary pause. “... and you can stop acting like I’m some kind of royalty now, too.”
“What-?” she gasps.
A sigh. “Yeah… no royalty here. Unless one of you three are-?”
“What-!?” she yelps, rising from the floor. “No! None of us- just…” She trails off, and takes a deep breath. “Just the Alicorns.”
The Princess’ ears droop. “Aaand, there’s the cultural barrier.”
She blinks. “Huh?”
“Yeah… I don’t know what it might mean where you come from, but Alicorn doesn’t mean anything around here.”
“... Oh. Sorry… back in Equestria, all Alicorns are automatically Princesses.”
“Oh. That would do it, I suppose. I hope I didn’t give you too bad of a fright?”
She grins sheepishly. “Eh. Wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if we’d have stopped to actually think for a change.”
Chuckle. “Or… I wonder- how understandable were Athena’s translations?”
“Flat nothing,” she answers. “The first one, all I got was ‘She says to nonsenesewords, and nonsensewords Princess’... the other one, it was ‘She says to nonsensewords, nothing’.”
The alicorn lets out a laugh. “I thought it might be something like that. So, um, I hafta ask, how can you understand me now?”
“Huh? Oh… that would be the translation spell I used to divert that surge.” She glances at the tip of her horn once again. “I didn’t mean to release it without permission, given the invasive nature of the spell… sorry about that.”
“Oh. Um, no worries. So, is it just you and me, or…?”
“What that spell did, was to copy your knowledge of language to me. So, while I should be able to speak fluently to anypony in your world, neither of the other two will have a clue what we’re saying. And, of course, I don’t know any spells to go the other way- to copy my knowledge to another pony.”
“Oh. So, the only way for me to be able to talk to them directly would be for me to learn that spell?”
“Uh, yes.”
“And that’ll take, oh, how long? I’ll have to figure out how to use this thing first, after all.”
“Huh? Did you ascend recently or something?”
“Ascend…?”
“Become an Alicorn.”
“Ahh, yes.”
“Okay. Um… It could take a month or more, depending on how fast you learn, to cover the basics… and translation spells aren’t basic by any stretch of the imagination. Once my horn heals up a bit, I should be able to walk you through an assisted cast, though.”
“An assisted cast?”
“Yeah… They’re usually used to help teach mentally retarded ponies to use magic, but they can also be helpful for really any situation where one pony knows the matrix to a spell another needs to cast.” Sigh. “I’ve never had a reason to perform an assisted cast, but I’ve gone through the training for ‘em- for in case I run out of power, even though I’m one of the strongest unicorns in Equestria, you know the bureaucracies.” She raises her eyebrow and, at the Alicorn’s nod, continues. “In any case, once my horn heals up, it’ll take only about two minutes to solve the language barrier between you and my… Uh, friends, I suppose.” She glances back at the beds the two are hiding behind. “I mean, Bonbon’s a really close friend of mine, but Fluttershy… not really.”
“Speaking of names,” the Alicorn states, drawing her attention back. “I’m Skyla, or Commissioner Matthews if you prefer. What’s yours?”
“Me? Oh, I’m Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings. And… Commissioner?”
She nods. “Job title.”