//------------------------------//
// Under Pressure 
// Story: Just One Man 
// by Cordovan Splotch 
//------------------------------//

		“Jeez... I wish I could have brought Spike with me here, his writing is so much more legible than mine.” said Twilight and sighed as she closely examined what looked to her like a strange big saddlebag, something the alien had reportedly been wearing when it was caught in Manehattan.

“Hmmm, it’s made from some kind of tough grey fabric... doesn’t feel like anything I’ve felt before... maybe get Rarity to look at it once she’s done with it’s clothes.”
She rotated the courier bag in the air with her magic, looking at it from every angle.
“There seem to be clasps underneath the flap for securely closing it... made from another unknown material... not closed.”
Using her magic, she opened the bag and laid it down on a table in front of her, squeeing with excitement as she looked into it.

“Okay Twilight, keep it together! Keep. it. together! Whew...” she muttered to herself as her magic held the bag wide open.
“Insides of the bag seems to be divided into smaller compartments, each specialized to hold specific items.”
She pulled out a the bottle of soda, setting it down carefully on the table and puts a label next to it.

“Item number one... a clear blue bottle-like container with an unknown liquid inside... material of the bottle is unknown but seem to share traits with the material the clasps on the bag are made of. Printed paper label seems to be glued to the bottle, likely for identification purposes.”
Looking more closely at the writing on the label, she continued.
“I do not recognize any of the symbols on the label, but the patterns they are put in suggests it is written text. Colours on the label are green, blue, white and yellow.”

“Item number two...” She said quietly while simultaneously pulling out the next thing and noting down everything she said.
“... appears to be a flat, rectangular, tin container... containing... pencils?” her face betrayed a slight disappointment that it had not contained something more interesting and foreign.
“The pencils are masterfully crafted and a lot thinner than any I have seen before, but are apparently made from the same materials as Equestrian pencils and work in the same way.”

Pouting slightly, she pulled out the next artifact.
“Item number three... appears to be a sketchbook, with remarkably fine paper... much smoother than any paper produced here in Equestria. A more thorough investigation of what has been drawn in it must wait until preliminary examination of all the alien artifacts has been completed.”

Next up she pulled out eight almost identical items.
“Item number four is in fact several seemingly identical items... they are made of the same mysterious material as the clasps and the bottle, except for small slivers of metal on what appears to be removable protective caps.”
She cautiously pulled the end cap off of one of the devices, revealing a small metal tip.
“When cap is removed, device resembles a pencil made from the mysterious material and has a tip of metal instead of charcoal. It seems a safe assumption that this is some form of writing implement.”
Twilight put the ball-point pen to a piece of paper and wrote out her name with it... her jaw dropped as she observed the coloured ink mark the page with a fine and even line.
“Uhm... a uhh... a quick experiment proved this theory to be true... the entire collection of these...” Her eyes shifted from side to side as she slipped half of the pens into her own saddle-bags.
“Uhm... these uhh... four writing tools appear to be used to write in different colours. Finding out how these can be replicated may very well revolutionize writing in Equestria.”
She reluctantly put down the remaining four ball-point pens on the table along with their own numbered label.

‘Unbelievable... so many important new discoveries. All in one simple saddlebag. This is amazing! This is... This...’
Twilight thought to herself as she got more and more excited about the implications of the discoveries she was making, needing to take a few deep breaths to calm herself down before she could continue.

“Okay... Item number... uh... five.” she said pulling out a small, dark and flat object with a smooth glass surface on one side.
“Hmmm... this seems to be made from both metal, glass and more of this foreign material that many of the other things contained.”
Starting by examining the glass covered side, she was suddenly stumped as to what this might be.
“The glass surface has markings appearing to be inside the glass as opposed to on it... near one end are three markings put close together, somewhat resembling some of the lettering on the label on the bottle.”
She quickly re-checked the bottle label, nodding as she confirmed her suspicions of the markings being letters.
“Near the opposite end are four markings, evenly spaced out to fill the entire... breadth? Height? Uh... the entirety of what I believe to be the breadth of the artifact.”
If the lettering at one end and the lettering on the bottle was anything to go by, they were an indication of a portrait format instead of a landscape format. With this perspective in mind, she examined the other four markings.
“The leftmost of the four markings is a pentagon with the two bottom angles being right angles, it looks like a symbol made to resemble a house... the next symbol is three simple parallel lines, resembling a bit of text... the next is a bent arrow, pointing left... the final one being a circle with a line protruding down and to the right... slightly resembling a magnifying glass.”
More closely examining the glass surface revealed more oddities, causing more questions to pop up about this alien device.
“The glass is extraordinarily smooth and free of scratches, there are however a few smudges on it’s surface, but I can’t tell if this holds any significance... near the trio of markings is a long, thin indentation with tiny holes in the metal frame and next to that a circular indentation.”
To Twilight it didn’t seem like there was more to see on this side, so she flipped it over.
“Near the middle of the opposite side the trio of letters from the glass surface is repeated, finely stamped into the metal, it would seem... near each end are two areas with a slightly rubbery feel to them... one of these areas has two glass-covered circular indentations and a small version of the long indentation from the opposite side. The function of these elude me as the device seems to be inactive.”

Next, she examined the edges of the device, finding two holes in it and two bits that extruded from the frame by a tiny bit.
“The extrusions are small and unseeming and their functions a mystery... the holes are different from each other, one is round and deep while the other has a strangely flat but irregular shape and visible bottom... perhaps meant for connecting with other devices?”

Not being able to figure out the function of this device, she laid it to rest on the table next to it’s label.
“Item number five seems masterfully crafted and designed... it might even be a unique or rare artifact, extra care must be taken when examining it further.”

She delved back into the bag but only found a few loose bits of paper and cardboard with writing on them as well as what she deemed to be a keyring with a collection of keys... they were different form Equestrian keys, having been made out of flat bits of metal, but it was hard to mistake their function.

Twilight was simply bursting with excitement over all this and had to talk with somepony about it. So she trotted over to where Rarity was examining the clothes they had gotten off of the alien being.
“Hey there Rarity.” she said with barely controlled enthusiasm.
“Hello Twilight, these items are just fascinating, don’t you think?” replied Rarity.
“I do! Just the things in the saddlebag alone could probably have me busy with research for YEARS! This is amazing!”
“Really? That’s marvelous darling! These clothes are fairly straightforward when keeping in mind that they’re made for a bipedal creature. The quality is good, but not as good as I could make them myself.”
“Sooo... not very interesting?
“Oh no! Quite the contrary or as the say in Prance ‘au contraire’ my dear. You see, all over these clothes I’m seeing signs that they were all mass produced.”
“Mass produced? Why would anypony mass produce clothes?”
“Nopony would, because as our dear Applejack would so aptly put it, we don’t normally wear clothes.”
“But a species that does...” mouthed Twilight as her eyes grew wide.
“Exactly... whatever it is, there’s many more of them somewhere, and they all normally wear clothes... oh dear the cultural implications!” Rarity’s eye sparkled with excitement.
“Also darling... the fashion of these clothes is fairly recognizable, I myself wore a sweater not unlike this one, during my trip to Canterlot back before that birthday of yours eight years ago.”
“Oh? What about this hat then? It looks a little bit like Applejack’s.”
“Yes... and for the life of me I can’t figure out why somebody would wear that with a sweater like this.”
Twilight merely raised her eyebrow at this little bit of irrelevant information from the fashionista.
“This hat was a bit of a mystery to me in more ways than one however... you see the material it is made of is tough and pliant, but also fairly smooth and soft to the touch, but most importantly... it’s completely water-resistant.”
“So... what is it made of?” Twilight asked
“It took me awhile to figure out, but I believe it’s made from the skin of a dead animal.”
“Wha...!?” exclaimed Twilight taking a step back... pointedly moving away from the hat.
“Yes... my reaction to the epiphany was not unlike yours... but I must admit that the attributes of the material are impressive. Disregarding the rather macabre origins of this hat, I do believe somepony like our dear Applejack would appreciate something like this.”
“Let’s uh... talk about the other clothes.” Twilight awkwardly said.
“Indeed... see these? The alien wore these underneath the other pants, I don’t quite recognize the fabric type, but they are silky smooth to the touch.”
Twilight grabs them and feels them.
“Oh wow! You’re right Rarity, these feel great!”
“The fact that they were worn underneath the outer layer of clothing as well as information from the report of it’s capture, leads me to believe that the long legged pants are meant for protection against the elements, while these are meant for another sort of protection.”
“Mhmmm...?”
“The creature has no fur coat to speak of which would necessitate clothes in most climates, but what caught my eye in the report was that when it’s clothes were removed, it’s reproductive organs were discovered to always be unsheathed, which would necessitate a more delicate fabric to protect them from chafing.”
Twilight Sparkle very suddenly stopped softly rubbing her cheek against the smooth fabric of the undergarments and instead started blushing furiously.
Rarity on the other hand was working hard to stifle her laughing at the poor unicorn.

Soon after Twilight hurriedly left the Clothing research station, having completely forgotten to ask about the materials used to make the alien’s saddlebag. Returning to her own station to see Pinkie Pie looking over all of the things on the table with wide eyes.
“Hey Pinkie Pie.”
“Hi Twilight! Have you seen all these things? Some of them are really weird and don’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before, which is weird because I’ve seen a alooooooooooot of things, but I haven’t seen these things before, have you seen them before?”
“Yes Pinkie, I was the one who unpacked them from the saddlebag.”
“Oooooooh, then now what are you gonna do with them?”
“I’m going to closely examine each thing to find out exactly what they are.”
“Ooooh, oooh, oooh, OOOH! Can I help?”
Twilight thought about this for a moment before agreeing, she was going to start with the bottle of liquid anyways... nothing much dramatic could come from that.
“Alright, just follow me Pinkie.” said Twilight as she grabbed the bottle with her magic and took it to a seperate table.
“Okie dokie lokie!” replied Pinkie Pie, bouncing to the opposite side of said table.
“Well,” said Twilight “I’ve already examined the outside of this bottle, so I think it’s about time I try opening it.”
At that moment Pinkie Pie felt a few unfamiliar twitches and a chill running down her... chin? While Pinkie Pie contemplated how a chill could ever run down her chin, Twilight Sparkle opened the bottle... and something dramatic came from it, spraying all over the two mares.
“Oh sweet Celestia! It’s a bomb! It’s poison! It’s a POISON BOMB! Everypony run for your lives!” Twilight yelled untill she heard the sound of Pinkie Pie’s raucus laughter.
“Pinkie Pie! What are you doing?”
“Oh Twilight, this isn’t poison.”
“It isn’t?”
Pinkie Somehow managed to lick the liquid from the entirety of her face with one swipe of her tongue.
“Nope, it’s lemon soda! And it’s delicious.”

Twilights eyes went a little twitchy as she put the cap back on the bottle of soda and placed it back on the table with the other things.
Then she exited the research lab and headed for the shower... deciding not to go back there for the rest of the day... this day had been more than long enough.