Applejack led Rarity, Fluttershy and Spike into Sugarcube corner, where Pinkie was happily bouncing on the spot behind the counter, humming the theme tune to Star Trek: Voyager, but only Pinkie knew that.
“Pinkie, have you seen Twi?” Applejack asked, interrupting Pinkie’s humming and bouncing performance.
“Yep!” the pink party pony replied, bouncing over the counter to join the others.
“Where?” Applejack asked, desperate to get more information.
“I spotted her when I was looking for Gummy. Mrs. Cake had left the back door open so she could take out the trash and Gummy loves to explore so I went out to look all over Ponyville to find him! I checked Lyra’s house, the Town Hall, the post office, Quills and Sofas, Sweet Apple Acres, Derpy's place, Voyager…”
****
“I’m telling you, I saw a pink horse!” Ensign Harry Kim cried out in frustration at Tuvok and Tom Paris as The Doctor performed a scan with a tricorder on the young ensign in Voyager’s sickbay.
“Ensign Kim, the sensors have detected no additional lifesigns apart from the crew and there are no ships present for 20 light years.” Tuvok explained in the usual Vulcan monotone.
“What about cloaked ships?” Kim suggested. The Doctor performed yet another examination of his head with a different tricorder.
“Harry, maybe the Delta Quadrant has finally got to you.” Paris said as he put a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder, but Kim shrugged it off. The Doctor had finished his scans and cleared his throat to gain attention.
“All scans that I have run on Ensign Kim show that he is as healthy as the day that he first stepped onto Voyager.” Kim smiled confidently at this news. “However, he may be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after being attacked by Species 8472, or he is being overworked.” Kim groaned and buried his face in his hands.
“I suggest a few days off duty to relax, maybe spend some time in the holodeck.” The Doctor suggested.
“You heard the holoman, Harry. Rest, relaxation, and a massage by Risa’s most beautiful women.” Paris said as he walked with Kim out of sickbay. Tuvok simply glanced at The Doctor before leaving for his post on the bridge. The Doctor sighed and walked into his office, sitting down in his chair, and started humming. He was humming the theme tune to My Little Pony, but he didn’t know that.
The Doctor continued his work on writing his own piece of opera, something which he had been working on for little over a year now. He was working on it when Ensign Kim, Lieutenant Paris and Lieutenant Tuvok entered babbling about 'pink ponies' and a 'Gummy'.
Barely a minute in, Janeway entered sickbay in her night gown.
“Captain! Is there something wrong?” The Doctor asked as he approached Voyager’s captain.
“I want you to run a full scan to make sure I’m not hallucinating.” Janeway ordered as she seated herself on a biobed. The Doctor grabbed a tricorder and started scanning.
“What do you mean when you say ‘hallucinating’?” The Doctor enquired as he performed the scan.
“I’ve just seen a pink horse, and it asked me where Gummy was.” Janeway explained as she rubbed some sleep out of her eyes. The Doctor sighed as he rolled his eyes. Obviously he was going to have words with Neelix…
****
“…The Library, some clouds-” Pinkie was interrupted as Applejack shoved her hoof into Pinkie’s mouth.
“Ah jus’ wanted to know where Twilight was.” The farm pony said in exasperation.
“Oooh! Why didn’t you say so, silly?” Pinkie said when Applejack had removed her hoof. “I saw her enter the Everfree Forest! I called out to her, but I don’t think she heard me. I was going to go and say hi and ask her if she had seen Gummy when I realised that he was on my tail the entire time!” Pinkie giggled but it slowly died down as she noticed the shocked and terrified expressions the others were giving her.
“Pinkie, there’s Changelings in the forest! They might’ve gotten Twilight!” Rarity exclaimed. Pinkie gasped dramatically.
“Spike, you send a letter to the Princess about all of this right away! The rest of y’all, we’re going to go find our friends!” Applejack said. They all nodded and exited the shop at a run, Spike heading for the library while Applejack led the others to the Everfree forest.
****
A lone humanoid wearing a red and black uniform with four gold pips on the collar and a badge of sorts on his chest was seated on a fluffy pink cloud, watching everything. He plucked a piece of the cloud and ate it slowly and thoughtfully, thinking of his next move.
He was planning on returning to the fair land of Equestria to rain some chocolate milk, make pigs fly, even dye Celestia’s hair grey! But that was all ruined when that Borg ship crashed in that old, flimsy castle.
Sometimes, Q actually regretted introducing Picard to the Borg, but it would’ve happened eventually. It was because of Picard that caused it all. He had destroyed, or will destroy, a Borg sphere in orbit of his precious Earth in their linear time of 2063. The explosion that engulfed the sphere caused the wreckage to fall onto their arctic, to be discovered almost a hundred of their years later by bumbling idiots who thought they were scientists. Then Archer made a mess of things when he failed to stop the revived drones from sending out a transmission to the collective of Earth’s location, which lead to the neutral zone outposts disappearing 200 years later, and the rest is history.
The only reason he regretted showing Picard the Borg is that Voyager wouldn’t have arrived in their space and accidently send a sphere to this peaceful land, ruining Q’s plan for chaos.
Thinking about it all, he could still cause some chaos and let somebody else get rid of the Borg pests below, but who?
An evil smile appeared on the superbeing’s face4 as he rubbed his hands together.
“When there’s some Borg,
In your garden…
Who ya gonna call?” Q sang as he disappeared in a flash of light.
****
After over an hour and a half of trotting through the Everfree Forest, the four Elements of Harmony were approaching the ravine where Rainbow Dash had proven her loyalty. They stopped at the edge of the ravine, staring at the metal structure on the other side.
“How do we get in?” Fluttershy asked, backing away from the structure.
“Rarity, can ya get us in there with yer tele-magic-thing?” Applejack asked the fashonista Unicorn.
“Unfortunately not, that was Twilight’s talent; I’m a Unicorn whose magic can only be used for beauty and fashion.”
“Can ya at least try?” Applejack asked. Rarity rolled her eyes in defeat and prepared herself. Her horn started to glow blue as she focused all of her magic on getting the four ponies inside. There was a flash, and soon they were inside a dark metal chamber with green lights and occasional flashes.
Rarity swayed before she toppled to the ground out of exhaustion. The others yelped when they saw their friend down and immediately went to her side. They panicked at first, but it turned out that the effort had made the Unicorn so tired that she fell unconscious.
“Fluttershy, stay here an’ look after Rarity. Me an’ Pinkie are gonna find Twilight and Rainbow.” Fluttershy nodded shyly as the two earth ponies walked out of the chamber. The flashes of light and the mood and temperature was making Fluttershy feel scared.
Meanwhile, Pinkie and Applejack delved deeper into the foreign building.
“This is so dark and scary! It reminds me of the time I ate cupcakes with cheese before bed and I had a horrible nightmare where there was these weird cyber ponies and they were going to asinulate me! They grabbed my neck and tried to put little tube thingys into my neck like a vampire, then I woke up and discovered that Gummy was sucking on my neck.” Pinkie explained with a smile, tough it wasn’t as radiant as before.
That’s nice, Pinkie…” Applejack replied, partly disturbed by the explanation and slightly fearful of their surroundings. They trotted through a doorway, and found a room with several alcoves built for ponies, with one of them occupied.
“That’s exactly what the cyber ponies looked like! Oh they’re good!”
Back in the chamber, Fluttershy looked around more nervously. Rarity was still unconscious and all attempts to rouse her had failed. The flashes made the shadows jump out at Fluttershy, scaring her even more.
“Fluttershy!” Fluttershy perked up at the familiar sounding voice and turned around to face the source.
“Twilight!” Fluttershy called back, and spotted the silhouette of her friend in the darkness of a corridor. However, when Twilight entered the room and the green light, Fluttershy got a good look at the Unicorn. She screamed and fainted from shock to the floor next to Rarity.
“Well, this makes it easier.” Twilight said to herself as she moved Fluttershy’s neck slightly and prepared to begin the assimilation process.
Meanwhile, Applejack and Pinkie had moved on from the weird alcove room with its occupant and entered another, where they found Rainbow dash barely conscious on an assimilation table. Her limbs were held down by metal clamps and patches of her coat were gone, revealing the slightly pale skin and grey veins beneath. Her mane and tail were still intact, but her wings had lost all of their feathers.
“Rainbow!” the two ponies shouted as they tried to bring back their friend to reality.
“Huh? Applejack, Pinkie?” Rainbow muttered as she tried to move. “W-what’s going on?! Why can’t I move?!”
“Take it easy, we’re going ta get you outta here. Pinkie, try an’ get those clamps off.” Applejack explained as she tried to remove the clamp holding Rainbow’s left forehoof.
“Aye aye, Captain Applejack!” Pinkie said as she saluted, before she started to gnaw at a clamp. After several minutes of struggling, Rainbow was free. Pinkie supported the Pegasus as Applejack led the way out of the room, but their progress was halted when alarms started to go off.
Twilight looked up at the ceiling, letting Fluttershy’s head fall to the floor.
INTRUDERS IN THE ASSIMILATION CHAMBER. SEEK OUT AND CAPTURE FOR ASSIMILATION. Twilight ordered over the link between the drones.
Drones left their tasks and alcoves and started moving towards the assimilation chambers.
The trio of ponies stood in the corridor as the drone from the alcove room blocked their path. It approached them, its infra-red eyepiece scanning each of them.
“Resistance is futile.”