//------------------------------//
// January 11, 2016. 1:45 PM 
// Story: An Ally Called Preponderance 
// by Myriad Kay 
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Magic is real, and this is not a good thing.

I guess I have some catching up to do from the last entry. I was only midway through writing it when, as per my suggestion, the girls reached their new destination: a Fridays across the street. Officer Stiles initially had apprehensions about moving a target to a populated area, but I reassured her that the Veilspawn were likely no risk to humans—after all, in our single encounter thus far, the creature had made no effort to retaliate against the individual pumping its spine full of buckshot. Reluctantly, the officer agreed with my logic, briefly radioing in that "ET-Gold, ET-Orange, and ET-White were relocating to an area with less avenues of surprise attack".

There was nothing I could do to contribute to their safety while they traveled, as the girls were the the only ones capable of seeing their attackers, so I tried in vain to knock out another entry in the book before my phone rang again—Apple Bloom, announcing that they had safely arrived. The restaurant was packed for lunch, which meant decent protection—though it also meant a lot of stares and questions. Officer Stiles, for her part, handled it well, explaining straightforwardly that she was watching three extraterrestrials until a scientist arrived to pick them up, and would need three Kids Menus along with her own.

Presenting the girls with actual food options, of course, made it that much harder to pressure them into safe choices. After some back and forth, we settled on pasta with marinara sauce, French fries, and lemonade. My logic was that everything on the list either had an acidity high enough to discourage bacterial growth or had been cooked in boiling liquid. Having seen the interior of ice machines, though, I specifically requested their lemonades go without, and that the food be prepared on clean surfaces appropriate to how they would typically handle an allergy.

"This friend of yours, y'all said she was a... zoologist?" Apple Bloom said, idly fiddling with her half-empty lemonade as she waited for her meal. "Like, someone who studies animals, right?"

I realized her concern. "Animals, yes. But that just means she studies all sorts of creatures, not just humans. In particular, she studies how to keep creatures alive and healthy in different environments, which is why I want her to stay with you and do what she can to keep you safe."

Sweetie Belle shifted uneasily in her seat. "You're always talking about 'staying alive', like... like we're going to die at any second." She swallowed, choking on her words a bit as she continued. "If we never get home, is it always going to be like this?" Her voice had dropped to a near-whisper, possibly as she noticed the restaurant patrons on all sides watching and trying to listen in to her conversation. She smiled and waved at one of them, though I couldn't see whom.

"It should be better after Dr. Arbeck and her friends have time to study you and determine what is and isn't safe. You haven't had any adverse reactions to airborne germs yet, nor any human food you've eaten, which is a good sign. But, we still don't know if you react adversely to any chemicals unique to this planet, or if your bodies can fight off our diseases."

"Jesus Christ," I heard Stiles' voice say from behind the phone, "you didn't show them War of the Worlds, did you?" I laughed, though the girls mostly seemed confused. I told them it was an old fiction story about bad aliens who got sick when they tried to invade.

Scootaloo, I realized, had been fairly quiet since we arrived. Even as the food arrived and the girls hungrily dug their snouts into their bowls, I saw her eyes nervously flicking around the room at every opportunity, never staying in place for more than a moment. "Scootaloo," I addressed her, gaining her attention for only a moment before it went back to the room around her, "is everything alright?"

The alien swallowed a mouthful of pasta and opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. Her brow furrowed, as if considering whether or not to continue, before answering me in a small whisper. "I'm scared."

It was an understandable feeling, after the events earlier in the day. She had put on a brave face and reveled in the brief feelings of victory as her own Veilspawn was slain, but it was nonetheless a harrowing experience she had only narrowly survived. And, like a child awaiting a shot, she knew it was going to come again. Sweetie Belle showed distress at the direction the conversation was taking, but I pushed on regardless. "That's perfectly okay. Scary things are happening, but we're going to try to take care of it."

"But Prep's book said they take on the traits of the thing they're hunting. Like, mine was fast and could fly, like me. But Apple Bloom, she's really smart and really strong," Apple Bloom blushed at this and looked away, but Scootaloo ignored her and continued, "and Sweetie Belle, she can use magic."

There was that word again. I had kept meaning to ask about it, but I could tell that this wasn't the time. I had to do something to ease my young charge's fears. "We can start thinking about what the other two Veilspawn might be like, and then we might be able to expect them," I suggested. It was a shaky plan, but it gave us something to do. I took out my journal and began making a small chart, mostly for show, before facing it to the girls.

"My name isn't spelled like that," Sweetie Belle said. I turned the book around to see what I had written. "It's Sweetie-Belle, two words, and there's an E on the end of 'Belle'." Realizing I had been writing their names all this time without questioning the spelling, I began to wonder how I did on the others. Perhaps foreseeing my question, she continued. "Apple Bloom is two words, too. Scootaloo is just one, though."

It was at that moment I began to hear a soft music. At first I thought nothing of it, assuming that the restaurant had simply turned on its speaker system as lunch segued into dinner. However, a sudden look of panic appeared on Sweetie Belle's face. "Napkins in ears! Now!" she shouted.

With a quick sound of ripping and no questions asked, all three of the girls tore their napkins in half and bundled them into their ears, peering around the room in fear. Officer Stiles was not so lucky; the phone clattered to the table as she stood up, reaching for her gun as she spun around. From my upward angle I could just barely make out her eyelids drooping before she collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud. Similar sounds of heads hitting tables and trays of glassware being dropped filled the room. I felt nothing myself, listening to the song through a speaker presumably negating its effect. A white hoof partially covered the camera as Sweetie Belle pulled the phone toward her and tucked it into her vest. "It's a sleep song! Dr. Sydney, call the police, and tell them to cover their ears!" She ended the call, forcibly booting me back to the airport.

For a moment, I simply sat there in pure shock. Recovering as swiftly as I could, I dialed the Cherry Pike police. I explained the situation with the details Sweetie Belle had given me and hung up, not even waiting for a reply. Instead, I reopened the call to Preponderance's phone.
When the video opened, I was greeted with the sound of shattering glass—hopefully from the handgun Apple Bloom was holding in her mouth and not something leaping at her through a window. In my absence, she had apparently commandeered Stiles' weapon and was now standing on the table, tonguing the trigger to take poorly-aimed shots at an opponent I couldn't see. From the way she was turning, I inferred the creature was rapidly skirting the edges of the room, periodically clambering onto the ceiling. When her next shots only returned clicks, she discarded the weapon among the sleeping bodies and leapt from the table. "Scatter!" she shouted to her friends, and the three of them took off in different directions.

The music was no longer playing, and I noticed the girls no longer had twisted paper hanging from their ears. As my view galloped toward a doorway, I heard Sweetie Belle's voice from above the microphone. "It's after me, right?"

I nodded, then quickly realized she couldn't see me with the phone forward-facing in her armor. "Yes, if what Scootaloo said is true. Is there somewhere safe you can hide?"

"I need to draw it away from my friends first, like Scootaloo did." Her intentions were brave, but a crack in her voice betrayed her utter terror at the prospect. I heard a table being overturned behind her and realized, with horror, that she was being corralled toward the bathroom.

"It's trying to trap you! Go left, into the kitchen!"

Her hooves squeaked as she tried to change the direction of her headlong run. I expected, like with Scootaloo, her pursuer would lose her on the sharp turn and crash into the wall behind her. What I didn't expect was the blast of glowing red energy that shot into the wall in front of us, spraying bits of wood and plaster. I heard a high-pitched grunt of effort and saw a soft glow from above as a cloud of green enveloped one of the abandoned tables in front of us, dropping it sideways between us and the Veilspawn. More explosions sounded, and the green-shrouded table shuddered with each impact, rolling alongside Sweetie Belle protectively as she charged toward the kitchen. At its door, she withdrew her control from the battered table and galloped inside.

From the way she clumsily leapt onto the countertop, I could tell Sweetie Belle was not the athlete Scootaloo was. She was nearly tripping over herself as she tried to regain her footing, gazing around her for anything that could change the tide of the situation. The familiar green cloud enveloped several paring knives, floating them in front of her defensively as she walked backwards along the countertop, eyes never leaving the doorway. The kitchen was deathly quiet, and placed as I was against Sweetie Belle's chest, I could hear her rapid heartbeat. A quiet screech of claws against tile echoed through the room, and Sweetie Belle spun to the second entrance just in time to sidestep another blast of red energy. One by one, she launched the knives at her invisible pursuer, pots and pans flying from the countertops as it dodged, nonetheless charging toward her. Down to her last knife, she dashed forward, directly at her pursuer. She fired her last knife low, my view dipping down as the ground rushed past, followed by a loud noise from behind us. The Veilspawn had jumped over her shot, and she had slid underneath the jumping beast.

The fryers were in front of us, and I wasn't about to let the opportunity go unused. "Sweetie Belle! Can you move the hot oil with your magic?" My view twisted upward as she looked up to the tall fryers, and I heard another strain of effort come from her throat as a green glow began to emanate from their interiors. Slowly, a snake of boiling oil twisted out of the vats, coming down over the edges to hover protectively before her. I could hear her struggling to maintain control, and when the invisible Veilspawn fired another shot of energy at her, her concentration failed, oil splattering to the ground. She skittered backwards from the hot liquid lapping at her hooves, but the Veilspawn rushed at her, undeterred. I could see oil splash as it slid through it, losing control of its momentum. As it neared us, however, my view was pressed clean to the floor with a loud crack and I heard a cry of pain. A split-second later, we rolled over, the camera now facing the ceiling. I could see the dim edges of a glowing horn as I heard a gust of air, followed by a loud slam.

For a moment, there was no sound but the slowly normalizing heartbeat. Then, shakily, Sweetie Belle stood, staggering forward. Ahead of us, trails of smeared oil led into a walk-in freezer, its door still wrapped in the dissipating glow of Sweetie Belle's magic. She had trapped the Veilspawn inside, I realized. As we neared, however, I heard a faint sound like a camera flash, and Sweetie Belle's movement stopped abruptly. "It blinked."

"Blinked?" I asked. I wanted to believe it was a coy one-liner; that she was claiming she bested her opponent in the moment it closed its eyes, but her tone told me differently.

"A blink. It's when a unicorn disappears, then appears somewhere else. It's not in there anymore." I heard the sound of a door being kicked open, and shortly thereafter several police officers, armed to hunt big-game, rushed into the kitchen. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were with them, eyes full of fear for their friend. Upon seeing her alive, Scootaloo smiled with relief. Apple Bloom, however, rushed forward.

"Sweetie Belle! Your armor! What happened?" One of the police officers hurried alongside her, taking the phone from Sweetie Belle's armor and helping her out of it. Getting a brief look at it, I saw that one of the hard plates on back had been cracked in half by the sheer force of a piercing blow. While I couldn't see Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom's words told me what I needed to know. "That's a mighty bruise you got there. You alright?"

"I'm fine." A slight painful strain in her voice told me that she was not fine, but would be okay. The Veilspawn got away, though. I trapped it in the freezer, but it blinked away.

"You're telling me this unicorn-Veilspawn can do a sleep song, shoot lasers, and blink?" From the silence, I assumed Sweetie Belle was nodding. Apple Bloom reacted accordingly. "Well that's just a plum bucket of unfair!"

"Tell me about it!" I heard Scootaloo say from off-camera. "Mine was like twice my speed and could crash through walls and stuff. These things mean business."

As I write this, the girls are currently locked in a gun safe at the Cherry Pike police station. The trip there was tense, but uneventful, and I am told the incapacitated restaurant patrons awoke on their own with minimal injuries. Though we are still waiting for Dr. Arbeck's arrival, the police from neighboring counties are being called in to provide additional escort to a safer location. Stiles said there's a rumor her superiors even have orders to escort the extraterrestrials to Mount Weather, though she emphasized that it was hearsay.

What worries me most, however, is Scootaloo's statement about the Veilspawn mirroring their prey. Scootaloo was fast and winged, attributes that were both overplayed in her hunter. Sweetie Belle had magical abilities, though I gather that those of her pursuer were much greater. But Apple Bloom, according to Scootaloo, is strong and smart. Despite seeing their physical capabilities, we still know little about the Veilspawns’ mentality. After the encounter with Sweetie Belle's, we now know they can do a tactical retreat, but what does that mean for a predator whose intelligence is above average?