//------------------------------//
// 9 - Batrachology 
// Story: Evergreen Falls 
// by Meep the Changeling 
//------------------------------//

Containment Breach Report 978 - 3rd of Thanksgiving, 4 EoH
Recorded via Retro Temporal Scrying



Case Note 01: The CARE Council's assessment establishes the absence of culpability among the involved entities concerning the third breach transpiring on the 3rd day of Thanksgiving, 4 EoH, within the premises of the Evergreen Falls facility. All pertinent parties adhered to established protocols, and preemptive identification of the emotional parasite responsible for the breach was infeasible due to its exclusive detectability by entities native to its dimension of origin.



The nightmare loomed behind its would-be victim. Were it a creature of flesh and blood, its body would have been haggard, its skin taught, and eyes sunken. Dewey Decimal had proved an ideal host to escape destruction, but a terrible choice for survival.

The not-so-young mare’s curse and extended lifespan simply produced a pony with fears too abstract for the nightmare to exploit. It could turn a lover into an enemy, create a physical monster, turn public opinion against its host, inflict ailments, and other such things. Dew feared none of these things. She had faced them all before, enough to treat them with the uncaring attitude of a retail worker on their third shift of the day.

Dew lay in the living room, playing with her building bricks, enjoying the moment while subconsciously dreadding her inevitable fate of freezing to death in the vacuum of space after the last star burned out. A common fear held by many immortals with sufficient science education.

The nightmare could not replicate such peril. In truth, it feared much the same. What would it do when the universe could no longer support its prey? How then would it feed itself?

Perhaps it was the terror reflected onto the nightmare from Dew’s subconscious keeping it pinned to her. It could change hosts, find sustenance with ease. Yet it behaved much like an abused dog, laying in a single place, dreading offending its master.

Dew’s ears perked as June’s distressed voice called out from the basement.

“I’m sorry what!?”

The filly swiveled her ears to focus on the sound, curious as always to anything interesting happening around her. The nightmare shifted its attention as well. There was dread in those words. Perhaps there was sustenance to be had.

Enox’s digitized voice followed her exclamation. “When I ran a bioscan on you earlier, which I did to determine your gender since I’m awful at pegging it visually, I noticed your basic biological processes are all functioning normally, but your cells are not dividing. This state is a form of undeath. Typically employed to—”

“Show me!” June demanded.

Dew frowned for a moment, groaned, and facehooved. “Dammit, Dusk!”

The nightmare turned its attention back to its host, mistaking her empathetic distress for fear. It settled back down upon realizing there was nothing to eat within the emotion.

Dew stood up and walked into her room. It was decorated very simply. Bright orange painted walls, a few posters showing nice landscapes, and a glass faced cabinet holding small trophies and keepsakes from other worlds. Dew trotted to her bedside cabinet and picked up a small device best described as a ‘black mirror’ and pressed her hoof against the face.

She manipulated it with a few quick hoof taps, inducing the machine to light up with various runes and ring like a phone. The nightmare paused and leaned through the connection the device created. It was arcane in nature, a dimensional rift rather than a simple construct of electromagnetism.

The link resolved, and the nightmare could see a small, messy, dilapidated apartment on the other side. A white furred earth pony mare lay on a dingy sofa, surrounded by empty beers and pizza boxes while watching cartoons on a strangely flat television.

“New phone, who dis?” The white mare said into her own identical device. Which simply floated next to her head for no discernible reason.

“Dusk? It’s Dew. You uh… You forgot to fully rez June,” Dew said politely but with audible irritation.

“I did?” Dusk asked, frowning slightly before casually bending the fabric of space time to look at June across several barriers it ought to have been impossible for anything short of a god to look through.

The nightmare, despite its low intelligence, suddenly understood it should hide, and retreated into Dew’s deep subconscious. The view of the apartment vanished, leaving only what Dew herself could detect with her limited mortal senses.

“Oh shit, I did!” Dusk’s voice exclaimed from the device. “I had to run to save Violet. Can’t exactly resurrect a robot.”

“I’m not scolding you or anything, she just found out and she’s scared. Maybe fix it?” Dew suggested in that way which isn’t really a suggestion that girls use sometimes.

“Let her know you overheard and called me. I’ll be there in five minutes,” Dusk said before hanging up.

Dew stood put her device back on the bedside table, frowning at it for a moment and wondering how it could get a signal at home, but not when she took it with her on her adventures, then trotted back into the common room, passing through it on her way to June and Enox.

“I literally don’t understand how this could have happened!” June shout-cried, holding her head in her hooves as she sat on the floor.

Enox shrugged. “I thought you’d had it done intentionally for immortality. I was going to offer you some nanomachines to heal you from inevitable injuries since, well, no cell division means no healing.”

“No!” June shouted, her ears flicking back. “That explains why my HRT potions haven't finished… Buck me, they’d better finish up once I get this fixed. HOW do I get this fixed!?”

The nightmare stirred. Fear! Food. Not within its host, but within proximity. Perhaps, at an opportune time, it could make the jump. It only needed a moment with its host unobserved…

Dew cleared her throat and knocked on the wall with one hoof, getting both mare’s attention.

“Hey. Overheard the problem,” Dew began.

“You don’t happen to be a necromancer, do you?” June pleaded, her eyes wet with tears.

Dew shook her head. “No, but Dusk’s even better than a necromancer. And, frankly, she probably did this in the first place. How did you meet?”

June tilted her head, frowning for a moment. “I fell into a lake and… Oh. Oh I like, fully drowned. I’d thought she’d pulled me out in time, but I guess not.” June arched an eyebrow. “Wait, if she raised me from the dead like this, how can she fix this?”

Dew smirked. “She forgot to raise you all the way because she ran off to save Violet. It’s okay, she’ll teleport in and fix it in a little bit.”

June sighed in relief. “Oh thank buck.”

Enox’s ears twitched. “Why do you ponies always swear by sex, but when someone offers to take you to orbit for a little medical play you almost always go all prude?”

June snickered. “Wait, you actually do the whole probing thing?”

Dew tilted her head. “Didn’t you tell Sam no one does that? The abduction and experiment thing I mean?”

Enox blinked, then facehooved. “I forget you think like a kid sometimes. No Dew, with my species functionally extinct, no one is abducting people, experimenting on them, and putting them back on their homeworld for shits and giggles. If Sam had been taken for experiments by anyone around now, she’d never have been returned to Equis.”

“Oh, then what did you mean?”

June giggled. “She’s talking about the whole ‘aliens kidnapped me and did stuff to my butt’ urban legend.”

Enox smiled and rocked back on her hooves. “I make a point of abducting one lonely internet dweller a month who’s publicly posted a plea for anyone to boink them. They get their wish, I get to have some fun, and the package deal includes a detailed lecture on how and when to shower, a gift basket of deodorant samples, and a copy of Cadence’s Guide to Getting Some. Then I dump them in a crop circle somewhere near their home. It’s a public service, really.”

Dew’s face went blank. “Gross… Sometimes I’m glad I don’t grow up.”

Suddenly and without warning, Dusk was there. She existed in front of Dew, a few steps from June. There was no flash, no warping of thaumic flow. Only a jumpcut within reality itself.

The nightmare attempted to pull deeper into Dew’s subconscious. There were no greater depths to plumb.

Dusk spoke before June could react with more than an angry ear flick.

“Sorry about that! Normally I don’t miss accidentally leaving somepony as an animated corpse—”

June’s ears finished flicking back. “You could have told me I’d died! And what were you even doing, not just bringing me back all the way to begin with?!”

Dusk sighed and swished her tail. “Okay so… You set me up for a great joke by thinking I’m a changeling queen, but I’m not.”

“You’re not?”

“She’s Death, capital D.” Dew commented factually.

June stared blankly.

Dusk sighed and manifested a business card with a flick of her hoof. “Here, use your degree. I am Deus-Custos Dusk Vitae.”

June’s eyes slowly widened as the card itself delivered the truth of Dusk’s nature directly to her very soul. “O— Oh…”

“You have no idea how much of a plot pain it was before I thought to make those cards,” Dusk commented idly. “Anyways, before you ask, Normally I don’t animate and stabilize people. Normally I talk to you god to soul, let you get your whole ‘I just died’ emotions sorted out, then pop you where you belong. But… Well, I typically give out second chances to people like you. It’s best if I do that without taking you off the mortal plane. Less paperwork, less physical work for me.”

“And… And you partially raise them to… Check for will to live?” June asked with a morbid shiver.

Dusk nodded. “Mhm. If someone wants to move on to my realm, I don’t stop them. Unless their reason why is shit. Sorry for forgetting to fully raise you. I’ll fix that for you… Uh, I’m not Life though and you’ve been like this for a few weeks and have a couple potions working in you. There may be some minor errors.”

June arched an eyebrow. She didn’t need to say anything for Dusk to answer her question.

Dusk scratched the back of her head. “Typically, I raise people by simply rejecting their entry into death. Since you’re undead right now, you fall into my realm and I can work on you. I know I can restore you to life, but since I don’t do this very often—”

“Aren’t you a god?” Enox asked, her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“I am, but your concept of what gods are and can do is probably incorrect,” Dusk said rather quickly. “I’m basically just a Customer Service Rep for the least important part of reality. Cosmically speaking. I love you guys. My bosses don’t care much. They do things like keep gravity working. In mortal terms, I’mma sysamin for this particular domain of reality.”

“Ah,” Enox said with a frown. “So… It’s bureaucracy all the way down then? Glad we killed our gods.”

Dusk raised an eyebrow. “More trouble than they were worth?”

Enox shook her head. “Nah. Textbooks said they were delicious.”

Everypony stared at her for a moment.

“What? I always tell people my species were dicks.”

Dusk nodded, remembering sending those ‘gods’ to their final resting place long ago, then turned her attention back to June. “When I restart things, those potions will likely snap finished, and more importantly, that will be just the way your body naturally is. Like, healing potions will return it to this state. Is there anything I should try and fix?”

June nodded immediately. “Joint pain and morning sickness. Cheap potion has my body thinking I’m pregnant. Uh, could a doctor fix things afterwards?”

Dusk blinked, then smiled. “Oh, right! Yeah. That’s not a problem. Sorry, last time I did this for somepony, doctors hadn’t been invented yet. Let me just…” Dusk extended a hoof and the nightmare felt reality shift, warp, and take on a new form.

June grit her teeth, her knees buckling as a sudden burning pain spread across her entire body for an instant. “OW! What the—”

“Sorry, had to force those potions finished to tackle the joints,” Dusk apologized. “Pain should be—”

“It’s gone,” June said with a sigh of relief. “Thanks… Enox?”

The alien mare quickly ran another scan then nodded. “You’re good. Wait… Uh, your telomeres are not shortening when cells divide.”

“Is that bad?” June asked, not being a biology or biochem major she genuinely had no idea.

Enox shrugged. “Don’t know. I don’t have those.”

“It’s fine,” Dusk said off hoof. “Just means you’ll age slower, have a slightly smaller risk of cancer… Probably has some kind of complication though. I can fix that later, but it will take me time to work out how. Or see any licensed biomancer. I’ve gotta go, I was in the middle of something important.”

June responded with a quick hug. “Okay. thanks. Glad we could resolve this quickly.”

“Me too. I’m going to split before you realize me being real means you want to ask me a million questions about life, the universe, and everything,” Dusk said as she vanished into thin air.

“You mean forty two?” Enox asked, seemingly genuinely, at the space Dusk had been standing.

“I— Dammnit!” June said huffing and stomping a hoof as exactly what Dusk mentioned happened just as she left.

Enox giggled and grinned, resolving not to mention that Dew somehow had Death on speed dial to see if June would remember how and why Dusk showed up to begin with. Instead, since she was short enough to notice…

“Was one of your potions intended to cause teat development?” Enox asked.

June’s ears flicked back as she rocked her hips side to side to check how bad everything was in terms of weight and sloshing. Okay, that’s… Annoying.

“No… That was a side effect,” June grumbled to herself and everypony else. “Which I forgot to tell her was a side effect… And now they’ll just be like that till I have a doc fix it. Cool…”

Dew shrugged her wings and yawned. “I mean, at least if you get cut or burnt while cooking it will heal up. Also, you have full health care.”

June opened her mouth, then closed it. “Point. I’ll just make an appointment with… Whoever in town can fix these.”

Dew nodded and turned to leave, her mission complete. “Since I’m Enox’s height, I should point out that your skirt will hide that for anypony much taller than us.”

“I can stand on tiphooves if you’re too embarrassed,” Enox joked, knowing ponies had no nudity taboo.

June cracked a smile and laughed. “More like irritated. If she’d done her job right, these would have just reached full size, then shrank away normally. Now I need to see a doc about it, and anything else I forgot to mention, like the idiot I am sometimes. It’s just… Irritating.”

“I’ve got my suit’s bioscanner. We could go to your room and I could do a basic exam. Project some holograms. Work out everything you forgot to mention to Dusk as a problem,” Enox offered, sounding a little shy about her offer.

“I’d like that,” June agreed happily. “Thanks!”

The nightmare tasted just, for the briefest instant, a small moat of fear as Dew worried she’d have to endure the sound of the two bucking all night. It surged, slipping free from her subconscious that it might feast on—

Wait. The walls are concrete. I won’t hear anything if they do hook up. Good! Dew thought to herself, flicking her tail happily.

It always bothered her when she ran into a couple getting to be, well, a couple. After all, she never would. The nightmare had repeatedly tried to manifest something using that fear too. Unfortunately, Dew was entirely resigned to being single forever. An accepted fate is not one feared, nor is irritation dread.

The nightmare knew then it must leave its current host, or die. It also knew it had minutes of life to live without a host. It was far too hungry to be picky. June would have to do.

Dew turned a corner. Nopony could see her. Had she not known where she was, she would have stepped into another realm. Instead, the nightmare stepped out of her mind, appearing as a thin wisp of dull gray light for the brief moment it existed at the threshold of Dew’s mind and the outside world.

Once entirely free of its incompatible host, the nightmare oozed along the floor, racing between the carpet fibers as it followed June and Enox to June’s room.

The nightmare cared for nothing in the room other than the mare in the suit and its target. The room was a black void to the parasite. It needed but an unobserved moment, and it would take the very first it could get. It did not have time to stalk its prey.

But it did have time to plan.

It had heard June voice her fear. That her current form would be permanent. The nightmare did not know or care why, or stop to consider the implications. It only knew there was a fear, albeit a small one, which it could do something with and thereby end its starvation. It readied itself, prepared to act as soon as it had its moment.

“So, do I lay down or what?” June asked as Enox shut the door behind her.

“Nah. Just let me fire up the scanner from passive to active and—”

The nightmare felt a wave of dark magic ripple over it.

“— Oop!” Enox commented as her scanner illuminated the nightmare’s presence for her and her alone. “Hang on a sec. Gotta sterilize the theater.”

Enox reached out with her magic and seized the nightmare, pulling it physically towards her and forcing the creature to stare into her eyes. For the first time, the alien within the suit became visible to the nightmare.

It screamed, for it knew the abyss staring into it. It knew the ravages and horrors these beings had unleashed upon its kind “for the lulz”.

<Fuck off.> Enox ordered the nightmare telepathically to avoid frightening her new friend.

The nightmare didn’t need to be told twice. It had no desire to be trapped in a gem to power a device by being tortured for all eternity. It slid under June’s door and raced towards the next nearest host, a mare it could sense at the very limits of its host-free perception.

The nightmare slid down the stairs, pooling itself for a moment at the base of the steps. There it languished like a frightened dog until it had regained its composure. It slid towards the sleeping mare, sensing her sharply enough to begin formulating a plan for feasting upon her fears.

Sam’s fears were simple enough. Having to go to work. No twisting or manipulating needed. The nightmare could simply exist within her and regain all the strength it had lost to that infernal filly.

A shadow next to Sam’s bed warped, bulged, and distended outwards as Princess Luna shadow-stepped to Sam’s side. She sat down and lit her horn, preparing to cast a series of spells to heal and restore the poor overworked mare out of pity for her abused state to proper health.

The nightmare, not being sapient enough to understand anything other than “AAAAAA! BIGGER FISH!” turned and ran up the stairs and out of the observatory in total panic, entirely unaware it was currently so weak and pathetic Luna hadn’t even noticed it.

The nightmare raced into the woods near the observatory, forgetting in its panic how close to death it was. Within a few minutes it left the area shielded by the observatory’s thaumic dampener. The instant it was beyond the perimeter, something spoke to the nightmare.

It did not speak in words, nor did it convey its thoughts telepathically. There were no words, no emotions. Pure mathematical truth which resolved into a declaration of intent and will.

The nightmare could not refuse the speaker's words. It was entranced. Its existence before this moment was irrelevant. It may as well never have happened. It had but one purpose. It had only ever had one purpose.

To heed the demands of this great elder thing in its realm far below the world, and move a piece of wood.

The nightmare raced for Evergreen Falls. It didn’t care that it was rapidly dying. It had enough time to be of service.

It reached the edge of town and slipped into a small home through a crack in the wall. Russet was asleep, dreaming of the day his neighbor Silk would be sane once more so he could ask her out. Exactly the sort of victim a nightmare prefers, a simple easily twisted aspect of reality which could cause endless torment, horror, and fear.

The nightmare didn’t care any more.

It entered Russet, latched onto his brain, and forced him to move. The possessed pony jerked and jolted, moving in a clearly possessed fashion with such start-stop jitteriness that he awoke in a panic.

“I— What? The buck’s happening!?”

The nightmare burned its very essence to continue directly piloting its chosen vessel. It forced the panicked and screaming stallion out of his home, down the sidewalk, and to the retracted bridge across Silk’s moat.

“NO!” Russet yelped as he realized what the alien force was making his body do. “NO! THEY WILL BLAME ME, PLEASE DON'T!”

A few passers by turned to see where the yelling was coming from. None of them were close enough to do anything.

The nightmare resisted Russet’s attempts to wrest control back, visibly struggling.

“Oh, oh you can be fought!” Russet growled. “Come on you piece of crap! Can’t take a stallion one on one can you?”

Russet forced the creature back for a long moment, managing to step back from the short bridge. The nightmare redoubled its efforts, lunged forwards and smashed into the timber, splitting Russet’s lip… And making the bridge shake against the two locks which held it firmly closed.

“Ha! It’s locked, looser! What’s your ghost ass going to do now—”

The nightmare burned half its remaining life to warp reality and undo the locks. They clicked open with two loud snaps, their warded mechanisms protesting but unable to resist turning.

“Oh, come on!” Russet growled, putting everything he had into pulling himself away from the bridge.

The nightmare could not fail its master. It burned everything it had, threw Russet’s influence aside, and shoved the bridge forwards. The wood scraped across the sidewalk, the roller wheels squeaked, a soft thump echoed down the street as the bridge connected with the yard on the opposite side of the moat.

Deep within her home, Silk’s ears twitched.

Russet yelped and moved to yank the bridge back.

A fully feral Silkwing burst through the stone wall of her home, moving too fast for most ponies to react to, and lunged for the stallion she could smell through the gap in the mystical barriers keeping her caged. Russet yelped, recoiling as his love in the form of a rotting corpse tackled him to the ground.

Her mouth opened wide, her fangs glittered in the dark, her neck jerked forward. The specific scent of this particular prey dinked against Silk’s heart. This was not food, this was mate!

Silk’s devouring bite morphed into a peck on the cheek mid lunge.

“Aww!” Russet couldn’t help but squeak, terrified and also quite happy.

Silk hissed at her mate to let them know she was hungry and would not be sharing then vanished into the night to find prey that was prey and not mate.

“Oh, shit…” Russet commented, realizing what was about to happen just as the nightmare finished fading from reality.


⁜ ⁜ ⁜


Raven Inkwell - 3rd of Thanksgiving, 4 EoH
Palace of the Sun - Canterlot

Raven looked at the clock on her desk. She’d waited four hours after Luna had left. There had been no phone calls. No angry emails. Whatever Luna was up to, it was somehow okay. She could go home. There was still time to grab a meal at a late night diner with her—

The phone rang, presumably for Raven daring to think she could have a personal life today.

Raven closed her eyes tightly for a moment, reached out with her hoof, picked up the handset and held the phone to her ear.

“Regent Inkwell speaking.”

“Field Agent Lulamoon reporting,” Trixie said over the phone. “I have an alpha priority statement and was told to take it directly to you.”

Raven held the phone away from her mouth to sigh irritably. She’d assigned Trixie to investigate Evergreen Fall’s corruption last week. The mare had been irritated, apparently she’d wanted to talk to a friend about something… But one did not simply say no to an Internal Affairs assignment.

Not even the mare who’d issued the assignment.

“What have you found?”

“First, we’re compromised. At least one suspect knows we’re investigating and that I am part of the team.”

Raven swore under her breath. “Right… Abort. I’ll change agents immediately.”

“Before I abort, there’s more,” Trixie said firmly. “This afternoon, an anomaly was discovered at the Hackamore Valley Observatory. It had been covered up. PoI 2 heard about it when I did, then found me, revealed our operation is known to this facility, and offered to spill the beans on the whole affair, while within a zone affected by my own truth telling spell. They want legal immunity, and permission to keep working on Object 92.”

Raven blinked twice. “Pardon? Five years of corruption, embezzling, and—”

“He’s genuinely willing to talk.”

Raven thought for a few minutes about what could be so important and/or catastrophic about the appearance of one new anomaly that somepony would betray criminal allies of at least five years when everypony involved was some form of secret agent or another.

Nothing good. Raven concluded. We have to know.

“Is this line secure?” Raven asked.

“Yes ma’am. PoI 2 cannot overhear either of us right now. I’m in a silence bubble… And I don't exactly have much air left, as I had to call two ponies under you before being told to report directly, ma’am,” Trixie answered, knowing full well Raven didn’t mean the phone connection itself.

“What’s the anomaly?”

“I don’t know. It was reported by a maintenance technician half an hour ago. Investigators are getting their equipment together as we speak. PoI 2, he knows. He absolutely knows. He was terrified. Then he approached me.”

Raven nodded to herself. The downside to making a truly silent zone was no air cold move in or out of the spell. Somepony should work on a better version of that.

“Tell him we accept the offer, but he has to talk to me personally before he gets his immunity. For the record, he’s not getting immunity. You will escort and guard him as a prisoner not an informant. Understood?”

“Understood,” Trixie answered. “I—”

Trixie was cut off by the sound of wood splintering, tile shattering, and metal bending as something burst through the floor under her, penetrating the bubble and causing the changeling to fall with a yelp.

“Agent Lulamoon? Report!” Raven said, sitting forwards in her chair as she switched to active management mode.

“Under attack. Standby,” Trixie said as she jumped back up through the hole. “Oh… ponyfeathers…”

“Report!” Raven demanded.

“PoI 2 is dead, and you can abort Silk’s emergency blood delivery. She got out. Somehow. Probably some idiot kicked the bridge.”

“It… It wasn’t locked? It’s supposed to be locked when retracted.”

“I have no idea, ma’am. But given the amount of horseapples going on here I’ve found so far—”

Raven took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Buck…” She groaned. “Agent Lulamoon, you’re off the corruption case. Find out what in Celestia’s name let Silk breach containment… And… Let her finish eating. I don’t want anypony else dying tonight, and it will save the janitors a little work.”

“Understood,” Trixie said, hanging up and being incredibly glad that the vampire had no taste for changelings, disguised or otherwise.

Raven spun her chair to face the wall and punched it as hard as she could.

I’m going to have to handle investigating that new anomaly personally…


 ⁜ ⁜ ⁜


Junebug - 4th of Thanksgiving, 4 EoH
Hackamore Valley Observatory - Evergreen Falls

“Hey sis, can you two move real quick?”

June jolted awake, her head pounding from at least one too many drinks last night. She shook herself slightly, prompting a soft, adorable sounding moan from Enox who was laying in a blanket nest with her, out of her suit (albeit with a small breath mask on), head across her belly like a pillow.

“Uhhh…” June squeaked, ears flattening down. Okay… So… Not the first time I’ve gotten drunk and hooked up with somepony but—

“Please? Heavy…” Violet whimpered.

June looked up, spotting Violet holding a large window air conditioner on her back and shoulder, and realized her and Enox’s blanket nest was directly under her room’s window.

“Y— Yea, sorry,” June apologized, nudging Enox’s head with her hoof to wake her up.

Oh wow, that’s soft!

“She feels like a memory foam pillow wrapped in silicone,” June remarked to Violet.

“Cool. Congrats on getting a marefriend. But, like, this is digging into my back and it hurts.”

Enox opened her eyes in that way drunk people do when they’d rather just not move. “Wah?”

“We gotta move… Violet needs to install a window AC. Also uh… Did we bang or—”

Enox rolled over, wincing, arched her back like a cat, wagged her little reptilian stubby tail, then bent her neck around to look at her hind quarters. “I’m not stretched out and I don’t taste anything… So no.”

She trotted to one side to let Violet pass, followed by June a moment later. The two sat awkwardly on the bed for a moment before Enox telekinetically opened the window to help Violet, only to hiss in anger and pain as the sunlight smacked her in the eyes.

“Thanks,” Violet grunted as she levered the AC unit into place.

“What did we do?” June asked, holding her head gently. “We checked for medical issues… Hung out online trolling people—”

Enox giggled and nodded, then winced. “Ow… Yeah we did. Fuck you, atmosphere. Get below fifteen percent O-two…”

“Shouldn’t you get your suit on?” Violet asked as she shimmied the AC into place. “Don’t you need that?”

June frowned noticing her fur was damp and discreetly sniffed her groin, just to be double sure nothing untowards had happened. “... Why does my fur smell like beer?”

Enox tilted her neck and gently turned June’s head with her magic to show June the gills on her neck as they opened and leaked a small amount of pale amber fluid.

“Me. Breathing. Sorry,” she grumbled. “I’m fine in your air. Just got hammered. I think? I think I wanted to…”

June’s ears perked. “We played a drinking game!”

Enox winced at June’s shout. “Ow… Yea. Uh… Take a shot every time Princess Twilight says friendship during her ascension speech?”

June nodded. “Yeah… We did that… Terrible idea.”

“Terrible,” Enox agreed.

“I thought you didn’t sleep,” Violet commented as she lowered the window to secure the AC unit in place. “Sam said so.”

“I can pass out,” Enox yawned, checking her mask. “Oh shit, it’s almost out. Anyone got anything over 20 percent abv?”

Suddenly, something clicked for both other ponies present. Enox was speaking. In Equish. In a very cute feminine voice with a distinct accent. That was purely organic.

Violet snickered and put a hoof to her lips. “Soooo, is that translator box on your suit—”

“A massive troll,” Enox yawned. “Tell nopony.”

June grinned and giggled then winced and held a hoof to her forehead. “Ow…”

Violet plugged the AC in and switched it on, then nodded to June and Enox. “Well I’ll leave you girls to wake up from your date night. Dew’s making prench toast later.” She said as she trotted out of the room.

June frowned. “Was that a date?”

Enox shrugged. “Don’t know. Never done one.”

June kicked her hind legs shyly. “I mean, it was fun to cuddle… Let’s not do that drinking game again though.”

Enox smirked and nodded. “Yeah, screw that.” She stood up and arched her back before starting to look for her suit under the bed (that being the only place it could have possibly wound up if it was still in the room). “Not the cuddle tho. You’re very warm. Was nice.”

June blushed happily, though Enox continued. “I’m cold blooded, by the way. Sorry for just, getting all up on you like that without asking.”

June snorted. “It’s fine! Really. I wouldn’t mind if it happened again.”

Enox looked up for a moment then snagged her suit with one hoof and began to pull it out from under the bed.

“In that case,” she began. “I like mammals. You’re warm, smell good, about as firm as I like my mattress, and usually taller than me by a lot. You’re also lucky that we can’t give each other any diseases… But you literally have no idea what I am, and you might get too squicked out. So… Yeah.”

June rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, you’re a short reptilian half pony half dear girl. How horrifying.”

Enox laughed and shook her head. “Nope! Wrong taxa.”

June’s sarcastic eye roll became a frown. “Then…”

“Your closest comparison to me would be a yeast colony,” Enox said as she unzipped her suit to step into it.

“You’re a fungus?”

Enox nodded once, frowned, then shrugged. “Mmm. Sort of? Look, there’s nowhere I’ll fit into your taxonomy, just like how there’s nowhere you’d fit in mine if we ignore post-spaceflight bio-sci.”

June gave Enox a little poke, nodding to herself as the alien’s skin still felt like, well, thick rubbery soft skin.

“You know I have a degree in xenopology, right?” she asked, sounding genuinely interested. “So… Your skin’s quite thick. It can’t be mycelium, this is too dense and elastic so—”

Enox smiled gently and poked June back. “So is this keratinocyte? If you want the science, it’s all in the file. If you want the emotional side of things, bits of me won't grow out of my body or otherwise infest you. I’ve already had kids, and we can only do that once, so you won't inhale spores from me or anything like that.”

“Oh, you want the emotional side instead?” June rolled her eyes. “I get it, you’re an alien. Look it’s not like you’ve got a monopoly on weird biology. Like, a lot of my guts are not me, just like random microbes hitching a ride. Nature’s gross, so it’s best we ignore that shit unless medically relevant and stick to things like ‘Hey, she looks like a frog-dear-pony. Cute!’.”

Enox tilted her head slightly. “Okay. Emotionally you don’t care, but logically—”

“Logicaly, you’re a multicellular, sapient, motile, fungoid.” June’s ears perked, her lips parted in a half interested half SCIENCE!™ manic grin. “That is fascinating! What's your homeworld like? Is it fungus dominated instead of animal dominated?”

Enox blinked once. “Okay, so, the last few ponies I thought I might like got grossed out by that and stopped. What’s up?”

June raised an eyebrow and gestured to the room around her. Enox turned her head and slowly began to remember through her oxygen-hangover that June’s entire room was decorated with shelves of cheesy scifi novels, posters for spacecraft, real and imagined, and her terminal’s screen was displaying a paused episode of a show about magically traveling to other worlds.

“Ohhh…” The alien said slowly.

“Huge space dork,” June answered, then tilted her head. “Besides, you’re fun to be around, we like a lot of the same stuff, and you’re cute and soft and— Wait, you think you might like like me?”

Enox stared at June like she was an idiot for a while.

June blushed and coughed. “Uh… Good point. We’re having this conversation. So—”

“You’re lucky I like derps,” Enox snorted, then shook her head while smiling. “Look, we can try if you want. I know we’d be good friends. We have the same sense of humor. But there’s a lot more involved if you want to date me. Like, you’re a prey species and—”

Enox opened her mouth to reveal a single row of shark-like fangs, a set of small tendrils which were absolutely designed to help pull prey into that mouth, and a long probably prehensile tongue likely ment for grabbing fish underwater.

June swished her tail. Ooo! That implies some real cool hunting technique— I wonder if— I should ask! “D— Do you have an aquarium at home I could watch you hunt some fish in? I’d love to see how all that works. Wait, is it in your file? I should really read that.”

Enox closed her mouth then nodded solemnly. “Ah. Your science boner is stronger than your fear.”

June snickered and nodded. “I’ve never been scared of predators. It was a problem when I was little.”

Enox put a hoof to her chin, paused, then held her ‘hoof’ up to June and unclenched her webbed fingers, wiggling them. “How about this?”

“I was wondering how you’d swim well with hooves,” June mused, leaning down to inspect the alien’s morphable hoof with genuine intrigue. “How do those harden? They sound like hooves when—”

“This might work then.” Enox mused thoughtfully, folding her digits back up.

She finished shrugging her way into her suit, then quickly pushed her head through the water tight membrane and took a deep breath before sighing, smiling, and speaking through her vox again.

“Ahhh! Much better. I should sober up in a few minutes now that I can purge all the oxy from my blood.” Enox sighed. “Anyways… Uh…”

June’s ears perked suddenly. “Wait, you breathe alcohol. How did you do shots?”

“Take off helmet, put on mask, slip mask off and inhale deeply as needed,” Enox explained, flicking her tail shyly. “You could do the same on my homeworld.”

“Huh. Neat!” June nodded to the door. “Breakfast?”

“That sounds nice,” Enox agreed.

“Can you even eat with that on?” June asked just as somepony pushed the door open, making both ponies jump.

Standing in the doorway was a gray furred unicorn stallion in full tactical gear with a shotgun levitating at his side, but not pointed at anypony.

His helmeted head scanned the room for a moment, pulling up the IDs of both ponies. He nodded, turned to the hallway and called out. “Doctor Junebug and Technician Enox located. Dorms clear!”

June facehooved. Great, what the buck is this?

The armed security guard nodded to the hall. “If the two of you could please move to the living room…”

Enox nodded wordlessly and walked into the living room followed closely by June. Six more armed guards were present, along with Sam, Dew, and Violet, as well as a short mom-looking unicorn mare with cream colored fur and a mousey brown mane.

The mystery mare wore a bullet proof vest and a spell ward amulet under a lab coat and looked like she had exactly zero time for anypony’s sneeze, let alone shit. She walked up to June and looked her up and down for a moment.

“Doctor Sky,” Raven greeted coldly. “I’m Raven Inkwell. Second in command of CARE. You’re not in trouble. None of you are. But you will all be escorted to a safe room by these guards and held there until my ponies are done tearing the entire AC system apart, then putting it back in order.”

June winced. “Is this about the anomaly?”

Raven nodded once. “We’ll put things back the way we found them. Minus the anomaly. What's more, you’ll be working on Object 92 starting tomorrow.”

June tilted her head, frowning. “Wasn’t Doctor… Apple Brandy?” She asked, turning to a surprisingly well rested looking Sam.

“Yeah, that was his name,” Sam muttered darkly.

Was? June began to frown. “What—”

“There was a containment breach last night. Doctor Brandy is dead,” Raven informed with cold professionalism. “An alien—”

Enox winced and shouted “I was here all night! June can confirm!”, prompting Raven to roll her eyes.

“Not you, Enox.”

“Oh good!” Enox sighed in relief.

“A— An unknown energy signature appears to have been responsible and seems to have originated from here. I have reason to believe the aurora anomaly is related, and even if it is not, a full examination of the premises are required. I have elected to perform this examination personally as the number of preventable failures over the last few weeks is simply unacceptable and I was therefore going to audit the site anyways.”

“What killed him, exactly?” June asked with a worried flick of her tail. “Should we be looking out for anything specific to keep safe?”

Raven shook her head. “No. Silkwing breached containment through unknown means. She is not to be held responsible, and is no longer a danger now that she’s fed… Though she is immensely distressed at having killed somepony.”

Dew squeaked her eyes dilating in terror. “Wait, Silk ate him?” Her ears fell as she remembered joking about wishing for that last week.

“She did,” Raven confirmed. “Please, remain calm. Princess Luna and I are here to sort things out before they slide any further into the unacceptable mire which has formed here. If you need anything, ask one of the Stable Task Force. I have work to do. Boys? Please escort them to Safe Room six. And be nice about it.”

The guard with the most stripes on his sleeves nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Girls, please follow us.”

June stood up, her ears flicking back as her eyes narrowed. I liked this morning better when there was a chance of getting to take an alien mare out to the movies…