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// January 11, 2016. 7:20 AM 
// Story: An Ally Called Preponderance 
// by Myriad Kay 
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Everything has changed today. If there is one anchor that will forever draw me back to this moment, it's the fear I felt as the events of this morning transpired. It started with me being awakened a call, albeit not from Dr. Arbeck.  

When I answered the video call, the first thing I saw was orange feathers. I was tucked under a wing, I realized, and its owner was moving fast. For a moment, I just heard heavy breathing, and assumed I had perhaps been dialed by accident. And then, a fearful voice. "Preponderance didn't write the book to get us home."

I wasn't sure where to begin, so I started with the obvious implication. "Are you saying that Preponderance had ill intentions?" The notion somehow made me uncomfortable, having spent so long looking up to the creature.

"No! No. I mean, Prep is cool. The book even says how to get home, sort of. But it's not why he wrote it. It's about Veilspawn." Scootaloo was speaking in a harsh whisper, as if trying to be quiet and loud at once. Blurred scenery continued to fly past.

There was that word again. Veilspawn. Applebloom had mentioned it yesterday, but only in the sense that she saw it used in Preponderance's book. I realized the implication here: in the few hours I had been sleeping, Scootaloo had been reading the book. I suddenly remembered her asking about the coffee machine, then then counting out money when we got back to the room, and the events that transpired in my absence became more clear. And now, she was running. "Scootaloo!" I spoke sternly into the phone, keeping my voice soft to match hers. "What's happening? Why are you running?"

"My Veilspawn found me. It was in the air vent. I need to get away from my friends, so they'll be safe. It'll follow me."

"I don't know what a Veilspawn is!" I said. My mind was racing, hoping this was some bizarre, alien joke. The hope was dashed as the galloping sound of Scootaloo's movement was matched with a scraping, skittering noise of claws against metal. From my narrow vantage point behind her wing I saw her slow and turn, creeping backwards in what I now recognized as a hotel hallway.

"Crap. Oh crap oh crap oh crap."

I was about to shout at her, to demand some answer. Before I could, however, the wall I was facing exploded, shards of dust and plaster flying toward the camera as... nothing came out of the wall. Nonetheless, Scootaloo screamed, charging the opposite direction down the hallway. With a jumping leap, I heard her punch open a door to a stairwell, followed by a shrieking noise I assumed to be hooves sliding down a metal bannister. As she plowed out the lower door, her speed did not reduce at all, though she began to speak between pants.

"Look. This isn't good. Full disclosure: I'm gonna get eaten. I'm hoping the hotel guy will find the phone and bring it back to the girls, and I need you to tell them what's going on." I heard a frantic shuffle of hooves as if she was both trying to cancel her momentum and change direction at once, and the movement I could see between her feathers shifted accordingly. "We found Preponderance's bag because there was a Veilspawn claw in it. They're drawn to things from other worlds—especially the thing they were made to hunt. And every time you bust this 'veil' between worlds, a Veilspawn gets made to hunt you." I heard her swallow as her body spun around, once again backing up slowly and defensively. "It keeps things myths."

I thought back to our conversation the previous night. This, I realized, was the answer to Sweetiebell's question: what happened to the previous visitors. I admit elements of the notion enthralled me, realizing that these things she called "Veilspawn" could easily be some universal equivalent to white blood cells fighting off a foreign invader. However, the thoughts fell to the back of my mind as I realized the much more important issue at hand: my charge was being hunted. All of them were, but somehow Scootaloo had come first. "How do you know this one is only hunting you?" I asked.

"Preponderance said they take on your traits," she answered simply, though I could feel the heavy fear still present in her voice. "Mine had wings. That's probably why it got here before the others, and how it got in the vents." A halfhearted laugh. "But it can plow through walls and I can't. That's just kinda unfair."

Her grim joke made me realize an even grimmer fact: like the Veilspawn claw in the bag, I could not see Veilspawn, while Scootaloo and her friends apparently could. I didn't know if it was because I was looking through a camera, or if they were invisible to anyone from our planet, human or machine—though the latter would explain how these creatures had evaded common knowledge for the complete duration of human history. Had Preponderance not left its package, the three extraterrestrials would have likely been picked off in the forest before anyone ever discovered that they—or the creature hunting them—existed.

"Scootaloo," I said seriously, "is there anyone around who can help you?"

"I was hoping the hotel guy would be down here, but..." her words trailed off as I noticed her movement starting to pick up again. Whatever she saw, it had gotten her moving again. "Need wings!" she squeaked before my camera's view spun, followed by a click as her teeth clamped down around the phone, pointing it forward. I saw the tall reception desk rushing toward us, then sailing below us, and the world spinning as she landed in a tumble and kept running. Phone held in her mouth, I looked over her shoulder along with her, seeing papers and lamps fly from the desk's surface right behind her, knocked astray by an invisible pursuer.

Though I could only see one half of the chase, Scootaloo's movements were enough to discern certain facts about her hunter. He was almost definitely larger and faster than her, but she was more agile. On straightaways he would gain on her, but on corners and turns she could lose him. I realized her tactics were admirably clever: she had been slowing down to catch her breath and speak at corners, where she could see her pursuer coming and get a head start in the time it would take him to regain speed after the sharp turn.

Her agility was put to the test as she barreled toward the lobby fireplace, leaping atop the grate and deftly kicking it over. With a spray of sparks I saw something large collide with the flames. She dove over the burning creature, performing what first struck me as a controlled hover before I realized her pursuer was much more massive than I anticipated, and she was sliding down its tail. Sparks and flames rendered it partially visible as it silently pursued her across the lobby. Without losing a beat, Scootaloo charged toward the revolving door. I was momentarily confused—heading outdoors seemed a poor decision, as the environment would only favor the preadator. However, after passing through the revolving door I heard a sickening crack as the Veilspawn was caught in the device, its midsection presumably crushed in the biped-favoring portal like a hand in gears. Scootaloo slid to a stop, turning around to admire her handiwork.

A sudden explosion of broken glass and metal flying through the cold morning air told her—and me—it was time for her to run again. Her gambit had failed, leaving her pursuer free and herself in a disadvantageous environment. As falling snow stuck to the creature, I began to get my first real look at its body and magnitude. It was as tall as a bear, though much thinner and leaner, letting it easily slither through small spaces or climb walls. Its wings, unlike Scootaloo's birdlike appendages, were long and draconic. I couldn't glean much more, as Scootaloo was in no position to trade speed for any more than the quickest look over her shoulder. She rushed into another sharp turn, trying to lose her pursuer in the twists and alleys behind the hotel. I shouted for her to change direction, knowing where this would likely lead, but it was too late. She slid to a halt, having run into a dead-end alcove used to store dumpsters.

For a moment, there was no movement. I could hear Scootaloo breathing heavily, and I followed her head as she looked left, right, and up, as if to judge whether she could fly to safety. I wanted to close the call, contact the police and try to get them there in time to help, but I couldn't look away. A skittering sound of claws told me it was too late anyway, and that all I could do was watch.

A moment passed, and my view lowered to the ground as Scootaloo gingerly set the phone up against the wall, taking a step away from it. She flared her wings and gave a wry smile. "When you get back to the girls, make sure you mention the part where I set it on fire and then slammed it in the revolving door. You gotta admit, that was really, really awesome." I could see faint snowflakes defining the Veilspawn's form as it leapt against the alley wall to cancel its momentum, hanging its head low and prowling toward its prey. Scootaloo gave one last smile back at me before her composure broke, she curled up on the ground, and closed her eyes tightly, awaiting the inevitable.

I expected the sounds of evisceration as my charge was torn to pieces in front of me. Instead, I heard a screech of braking tires. Through the insubstantial form of the Veilspawn, I saw a pickup truck sliding sideways through the loose snow. In one fluid motion, a figure I recognized as the attendant from the hotel's reception desk, clad in his camouflage hunting jacket, drew a shotgun and hopped from the still-sliding truck's door. Three loud cracks, one after another, resounded through the air as he planted shots in the creature's back. Without missing a beat, he reloaded, followed by three more loud cracks. Scootaloo curled up even more tightly, flinching with each shot as the man reloaded again, pumping his gun and firing another three shots point-blank into the now downed, but writhing, Veilspawn. It was only on the eighth and ninth blasts that the Veilspawn gave its final lurches and stopped moving, the attendant seemingly standing on thin air as he kept his shotgun aimed downward. Long seconds of silence passed before he stepped down, treading over the creature and heading toward the phone that marked my remote presence there.

At first I was concerned—after the sheer amount of property damage caused by the chase, I would have a hard time passing off the three alien visitors as "harmless". The attendant, however, disarmed my concerns with a lopsided grin. "Give it to me straight, Doc. Did I just take a side in an alien war?"

Compared to Scootaloo's encounter with the Veilspawn, the events afterwards are already something of a blur in my mind. The three of us headed back to the hotel, both to inspect the damage done and get Scootaloo back to her friends. The desk attendant, apparently, had heard Scootaloo's scream and immediately rushed to his truck to retrieve his firearm. It took a bit of pushing to convince him I was not a secret government agent hiding an alien conspiracy, but rather in the dark as much as he was. Scootaloo, perhaps the most informed of us at the moment, told him much the same things she had told me about Preponderance's notebook and the Veilspawn.

"We're going to have to tell the police why there were gunshots in town. And why there's a dead, invisible dragon out back," the man said, "you want me tell them about the aliens?"

I thought about this. "No, let me. I'll call right after this. Just take Scootaloo and her phone back up to her friends." This answer seemed sufficient for him and he nodded. Scootaloo's adrenaline rush and caffeine overload were blatantly wearing off and she was having notable difficulty even walking straight. He scooped her up under one arm and, after a bit of wiggling protest from her, she gave in and let herself be carried.

As for me, I ended the call. It was a strange act, to be in the midst of a dangerous encounter only to close the app and find myself perfectly safe a thousand miles away. I blinked, my eyes adjusting to distance as I gazed out at the dwindling snowstorm.

The moment didn't last long; I looked up the number for the Cherry Pike police and called their office. I introduced myself and explained the situation, emphasizing once again that the aliens were harmless and I had a colleague who would be stopping by shortly. The policeman was understandably skeptical of my claims, but eventually agreed to humor me and go look at the Veilspawn corpse. The gunshot reports in town, he admitted, were something that had to be investigated regardless. However, if my claims were accurate then officers would need to at least speak to the extraterrestrials I had found. After some pressuring, and stressing that they needed time to rest, he agreed to put it off the questioning until the afternoon. After he hung up, I was once again back in my airport.

I am there now. As I write this, I find myself wondering what more I can do, or what I could have done better. Should I have sent the three of them directly to the police for protection? Should I have left them in their room alone? The more I write, the more I realize these extraterrestrials aren't just a biological curiosity to me the way Preponderance was; they are living individuals whose safety and wellbeing is in my hands. They are, as I've come to refer to them, my charges.

Preponderance was an "it". Both to itself and to me, there was no human element, and I revered it the same way one would revere an informative book or a strange geological formation. But here, with the three of them, I can't just be a scientist anymore.