Transporting a human into the clubhouse came with its own set of physical difficulties. Between the three of the Crusaders, once Scootaloo had been roused and force-fed the better part of a bucket of water, they were able to handle the weight. But the long limbs flopped everywhere and tilted the weight seemingly at random, and there wasn't a rung the human's forehead didn't like to bounce off with every opportunity it got.
But they managed before long. A small wooden chair was capable of supporting the human's weight, but their unconscious frame refused to stay upright in it. After the fourth time a hollow thunk rung out from where the human's head made contact with the floor beside the chair, Apple Bloom lost patience. “Tie her to it,” she declared, making for a coil of rope on the floor. “That'll keep her upright.”
“It might not be a her,” said Scootaloo. “They don't look much like Megan from the pictures. And I think that's a short beard on their chin.”
“Beards don't prove it,” objected Sweetie Belle. “Girl mammoths have beards. Girl goats have beards.”
“Mammoths don't count. They're all hair. But … yeah, fair point about the goats. I still don't think it's Megan herself. Bet you it's a boy.”
“Done.” Sweetie Belle turned back to Apple Bloom. “Could you take their clothes off? That's how you can tell for certain.”
“Girls, it ain't done to abduct strangers and take their clothes off while they're unconscious,” said Apple Bloom, somewhat indistinctly past the rope between her teeth. She pulled on it, tightening the ropes binding the human's torso to the back of the chair. Satisfied, she spat it out. “In fact, I fix to cover her up further. Pass me over a cloak. We'll wanna cover her in case any spy comes a-peekin' through the window.”
“Good thinking!” Scootaloo tossed over her cloak, which was in turn draped over the human. No response came, and the Crusaders settled down to wait.
“This … this isn't some sort of crime we've done, is it?” ventured Scootaloo after a few still moments. “Kidnapping a human, tying them up, covering them in a musty old cloak … this isn't animal cruelty or anything like it, is it?”
“Nope! Animal cruelty only applies if the species isn't sentient. Otherwise, it's just regular cruelty,” chirped Sweetie Belle.
Silence descended, heavy and smothering.
“...Which we're not doing.”
“Well, that's a relief,” sighed Scootaloo. “I wouldn't want to -”
“Hnnk,” came a muffled voice from underneath the cloak. The round shape of the human's covered head shifted gently from side to side. “Rrng?”
“They're waking up!” said Sweetie Belle. “Oh, this is exciting, this is exciting!”
“Take the cloak off,” said Scootaloo, her eyes bright. “Let's talk to them!”
“Hold your horses,” said Apple Bloom, trying and failing to not smile. She stepped up to the edge of the cloak. The human was definitely moving underneath it.
“(Wha – where am I? Someone? Where am I? Anyone?)” came a series of strange noises from beneath it, unintelligible to Apple Bloom. She tilted her head slightly to one side, and then shrugged and pulled the cloak right off with her teeth.
Pale blue eyes stared down from out of a face that was largely one massive bruise. The human's gaze flicked around the room, finally alighting on Apple Bloom. The filly offered up her most charming grin. “Howdy, stranger!”
“(I … what in the hell?)” said the human. Apple Bloom was caught short by the speech again. It was speech, there seemed to be some amount of structure and variation in it. But it emerged as a strange series of high yips and exclamations from high in the creature's throat that she had no point of reference for.
“What's your name?” she ventured, painting on a brighter smile and leaning closer.
“(What – what are you?)” The human leaned back in the chair, their eyes widening by the second.
“I'm sorry, um … Yrr? That's a mighty queer name, if you don't mind me sayin'.” The sound at the end of their speech might not have been their name, and Apple Bloom struggled to pronounce it, but it was all she had.
Her smile fritzed, and then she whirled back to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. “How did Firefly do it?” she hissed. “Was there a special potion she had to drink to speak their language or something?”
“I … no, there wasn't.” Sweetie Belle looked perturbed and trotted closer. “Excuse me? Can you understand me?”
“(...you're a unicorn.)”
“Um. Parlez-vous Fancé?”
“(I'm being spoken to by a unicorn. I haven't even had to drink anything.)”
“Where did you learn to speak Fancé?” said Scootaloo.
“I don't, I just know a few phrases. Rarity thought knowing some of it would be good for me. Not all that important right now! Do you know what she's saying?”
“He, bet you bits on that. And, ah …” Scootaloo screwed up her face as she racked her brain for memories of Cheerilee's foreign language lessons. “Hablo Asiniol?”
“(I'm not saying this isn't a surprising novelty as far as dreams go,)” Yrr muttered, “(I just don't see why it has to involve my arms being tied and my face feeling like someone took a hammer to it.)”
“Emergency Crusader meetin',” said Apple Bloom, scooping up the cloak again with a hoof. “Now.”
Outside the clubhouse, three fillies did a lot of very hushed yelling.
“Scoots, your human is defective!”
“You want to sprout wings and go get another one? Be my guest!”
“Don't shout,” whispered Sweetie Belle, making hushing motions with her hoof while glancing up at the clubhouse's window. “You'll scare her if she hears.”
“(Why is this cloak over my head? What's even happening?)”
“He's already hearing it!” said Scootaloo. “And he's making noise as well. We'll have to shush him if we want to take him anywhere.”
“Well, we can just ask her to keep it low -” said Sweetie Belle.
“How? We can't speak to him.” Scootaloo paced and muttered. “We'll have to gag him. Maybe we can take it off after a while once he gets the idea.”
Apple Bloom sighed. “This was the worst idea. Basically, the worst.”
“Oh, stop nay-saying!” snapped Scootaloo. “All I've heard from you is complaining. 'Ooh, Scootaloo, humans don't exist. Ooh, Scootaloo, you shouldn't go off and recruit one. Ooh, Scootaloo, you shouldn't gag this one that exists and which you recruited, I like being found and foalnapped by Tirek's spies.'”
“You're darn right I complain about fool ideas! We shouldn't have brought her here at all. Now we're going to have to leave her here while we go off and think of some other plan, since we can't even say 'Hi there, let's storm Tirek's castle!' to her.”
“We can still go off and do that. The castle bit. We can still take him with us.”
“That's unethical!”
“It ...” Sweetie Belle looked up at Apple Bloom, a note of pleading in her eyes. “It's the story, Apple Bloom. It's how Firefly did it. We need a human with us. And then we need to visit everywhere else before we take down Tirek. That's how it has to go.”
Apple Bloom's aggravation simmered down to a low boil, and her withers slumped. “Just ain't right to spring some weird demon-centaur thing with nearly all the magic in Equestria on a poor creature who ain't expectin' it. We can do something else.”
Sweetie Belle looked away. “We don't have anything else.”
Silence, not for the first time, fell.
Scootaloo spoke first. “Well, we can try to speak to him. We can do our best. And if we can't do that, then we're not the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle glanced at each other. Sweetie Belle offered up the ghost of a grin. Apple Bloom sighed. “Aw, what the heck. We've done stupider things.”
“Darn right we have!”
Three fillies trotted back into their clubhouse. Apple Bloom whipped off the cloak again, leaving Yrr exposed once more, the human blinking and staring wildly. He opened his mouth to speak
“Hush now,” said Apple Bloom, placing a hoof on his mouth. “We got somethin' to say. Might be you won't understand it – we'll talk loud and clear if that helps at all – but it's got to be said.” She stepped back into line with the other Crusaders and cleared her throat.
“We don't know if you're Megan of old or not. I'm suspectin' you ain't. If you're not, then you gotta know that a long time ago, longer than pony historians can say, there was an evil king called Tirek. He hurt ponies, he transformed them, he didn't care about them. One time, a brave group of ponies living in their valley were attacked, and they decided to take him on once and for all. For the good of everypony. Everyone.”
“But they needed help,” said Scootaloo. “So the swiftest and bravest and awesomest of them all, Firefly, flew out to find some. She found one of you guys, a human. Megan.”
“So she flew back with Megan, and together with the other ponies, they marched to Tirek's castle through thick and thin. There were sea-ponies and near-drowning and a Moochick who gave them a magic rainbow,” said Sweetie Belle. “And it was tough, and they needed more help from someone on Tirek's side, but in the end, they did it! They imprisoned him in Tartarus thanks to Megan and their rainbow.”
“And that was that for ages,” said Scootaloo. “Equestria grew out of Dream Valley and the other pony tribes that came from the North to settle down there, and a whole bunch of boring history happened.”
“But it's all gone wrong again,” said Apple Bloom quietly. “Tirek's back, and he's winnin'. He's captured our princesses, all our cities, all our magic, all our -” Something caught briefly in her throat. “- Our big sisters. They were wielding the rainbow again, you see? The Elements of Harmony. Or they were. There was a box as well, and they gave the Elements up. I'm not sure what was going on exactly.”
“We need to take him on before it's too late,” said Scootaloo. “We've still got our magic about us. He only drained anypony with a cutie mark of theirs. We're all that's left. And we need to take him on right.”
“We need a new Megan,” whispered Sweetie Belle. “Please help us.”
“We're the Cutie Mark Crusaders,” said Apple Bloom. “Right now, we've got no big sisters at home waitin' for us. We're never going to get a cutie mark, and if we do, it'll just be sucked away by Tirek. But if we can fight Tirek, beat him proper, then we can get all these things back. And save Equestria as well.” She extended a hoof. “What do you say? Crusade at our side?”
Yrr looked at them levelly.
“(Oh, thank the gods,)” he said abruptly. “(You've stopped whickering. Look, I suspect there's some sort of language barrier at play here. Strange thing to have in a dream – for all this doesn't feel like one – but hey. What can you do?)”
“Was that a yes?” said Scootaloo.
“We'll have to hope so.” Apple Bloom stepped behind Yrr and tugged on the ropes behind him with her teeth, undoing them. “Stand up, Yrr. We've got a long walk ahead.”
Yrr stood. “(This is a dream, and I'm in control,)” he murmured to himself. “(This is a dream and I'm in control.)”
And with that, he bolted like a startled rabbit for the doorway.
Apple Bloom was too taken aback to cry out, but reflexively lunged forwards after him. Yrr's arms flailed as Scootaloo flapped up at him. “No, wait!” she cried, to no avail. Yrr managed to flail and whirl his way right past her in the close confines of the room, and staggered towards the door.
Sweetie Belle had stepped back towards the doorway and stood in it, her horn pointing up at Yrr and her eyes wide and terrified. “No, please, please don't run away!” she cried. Magic unconsciously flickered around her horn. “Just stay, help us!”
Yrr, looking down at Sweetie Belle from a point twice her height at the withers, stopped. His eyes flicked from side to side, from windows to wall, his mind racing behind a discombobulated-looking exterior, options in the weighing.
In that split second, instinct alone driving her on, Apple Bloom galloped up to Yrr's side, spun to put her back to him, drew her rear legs back, and bucked him in the leg as surely as if she was trying to topple an oak. Yrr's knee buckled to one side and he fell with an agonised wail.
Screaming from all corners followed.
“No! Why did she try to run?”
“You broke the human!”
“(AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGHH-)”
Apple Bloom stood stock still. “Um,” she said. “Um. Shoot.”