Something was wrong. Twilight could tell that instantly. She had seen that this world was different, but she had underestimated by just how much it was different. Now she and Pinkie were paying the price. Both ponies clung to each other for their lives as they were flung through non-space. Twilight now didn't care about their destination; all her magic was focused on getting them out safely on the other side.
Then the stop came. Twilight was jolted forward, as if she had been in a rapidly moving cart that had been quickly dragged to a halt. A lump of panic caught in her throat briefly, before the two ponies, still clinging tightly to each other, were sent rolling and bouncing across a hard, painful floor. Metal, her mind rang out, before more sudden thoughts replaced it. Twilight thought she might be too tired to be able to feel any more pain or bruises. Rather, she was just too tired to be able to care anymore.
Twilight and Pinkie rolled to a bumpy halt, the unicorn flopping off from atop the earth pony.
"Owwie... Uh, Twilight?" Pinkie's voice was just above a whisper
Twilight just barely mustered up the will to speak. "Yeah?"
"I don't think we're out of the ship yet..."
"Huh?" From where she lay on her back, Twilight turned to look up from Pinkie. The ceiling differed in some details: it was closer, and smaller than it had been in the ponies' last prison, but the glow of the strange lights still reflected off of the strange metal plates and struts. "Oh no..."
"Twilight?"
"What now?" Twilight rolled onto her front, preparing to pick herself up back onto her hooves. She stopped dead as her own eyes locked with another pair. Not the large, bright blue eyes of Pinkie, but a pair of smaller brown eyes, much darker and older than any Twilight had seen before.
"Oh, no..."
"What the..." The voice was almost baritone, deeper than any of the first three aliens. Definitely male
"Ow..." This voice was female, and came from behind a corner Twilight could not see past.
"Inara!"
"I'm fine... What happened?"
"I'm not quite sure," the new alien turned back to Twilight Sparkle. From the way it... he was blinking, he looked to be dazed. Had her spell caused that? "Although, I think I know what caused it." The alien looked Twilight right in the eyes again. Despite the differences in their faces and bodies, it was easy for the unicorn to see that the alien regarded Twilight with only wariness and suspicion.
Considering that, it was fortunate that, as tired and disorientated and confused as Twilight Sparkle was, enough of her mind was working to tell her that speaking out now was a bad idea, if the reactions of the first three aliens was anything to go by. She said nothing, and continued to stare mutely back at the darker alien. With any luck, Pinkie would be smart enough to remain silen-
"Hi there!"
Horseapples.
The alien stared back blankly. Maybe it was struggling to believe that Pinkie had just spoken to it. From where Twilight couldn't see, another alien sat up. This one was most likely the owner of the female voice... 'Inara,' the other one had called her? Despite all the differences, even the half-conscious Twilight could easily conclude that this female was set slightly apart from the others. Instead of the dull, dusty furs and clothes the other aliens wore, this one had on an extravagant red dress, hemmed and decorated with shiny golden thread, almost like something Rarity would design. Her mane (Twilight was still unsure wherever or not to call it that) was a long and lustrous black, obviously well-cared for. Even by the radically different pony standards, the alien had a pretty face. On it was a look of shock and confusion even greater than that shown by the first alien.
"I'm Pinkie Pie! What're your names?"
Twilight brought a hoof to her forehead. This was getting ridiculous. Just as she prepared herself for a well-needed nap in another alien prison, the sound of heavy hoofsteps on metal pounded loudly from behind her. She turned just as three towering figures rush in through the doorway. The aliens from before. Each one was grasping at tube-like metal tools, all roughly shaped like an 'r'. Twilight did not know what they were, but she could guess that they were dangerous. Weapons meant to hurt. The tubes were hollow, and pointed right out the two ponies, as if something were designed to shoot out towards them. Definitely something dangerous.
The one with the short brown mane and long, trailing brown tail spoke first. "How did you get out?" His voice wasn't openly aggressive, but there was tension in it, for sure.
"Oh, Twilight just teleported us out! She meant to take us outside, but we ended up here instead because I think Twilight got mixed up! Then we met your friends (Pinkie gestured with a hoof towards the two aliens sitting on the floor, still stunned), then you appeared!"
"Teleported?"
"Mal, what's going on?"
"Honestly, Preacher? No idea. 'Course, they might have a clue." He shifted the small metal tube in his strange paw, so that Twilight was left looking straight into the dark pipe.
"Talk."
Twilight mustered up some previously unknown reserve of strength. She was going to need it, it seemed. Taking a shaky breath, she begun. "Right... Like we said earlier, my name is Twilight Sparkle. This here is Pinkie Pie." The pink pony waved to the aliens on all sides of her. "I'm a Unicorn-" The alien with the short blond mane snorted. Twilight ignored it; it wouldn't do to make a snide remark and further aggravate these aliens. "-And Pinkie's an Earth Pony-" The same alien let out a single bark of laughter, quickly stifled by a jab from the female alien beside him. Was it really that funny?
"This land is called Equestria, and you've landed in the middle of a large field, on the outskirts of the Everfree Forest." Twilight thought it best to leave out details about Ponyville for now. She still didn't know if these aliens could be trusted, and hoped that they wouldn't remember what she had said about it previously, when she had first met them.
"...Okay." The interrogating alien's arm relaxed, and the metal tube fell to face towards the floor. A good sign.
"Mal, what is happening? What are these things?" It was the well-dressed alien who spoke this time.
The attention of the addressed alien, Mal, shifted to her. "We went to fight off the Reavers, opened the cargo bay, and found these two instead. They're the ones knockin' on the ship. Don't know anything else you haven't heard, though."
"They... they're... aliens?"
Mal grimaced, along with the female alien (Zoe?) behind him. "So far as we know."
The 'preacher' alien was still looking on in shock. "How?"
Mal just shrugged at the older alien. He and the well-dressed alien both rose uncertainly to their feet. Now all five pairs of eyes were staring down on the two ponies.
"Uhh..." Twilight Sparkle found herself lost for words. All the excitement and enthusiasm she had felt for the discovery of the aliens had vanished. Now she just felt awkward. Funny how meeting aliens did that.
"What about you? Where do you come from?" chimed Pinkie. Twilight was, for once, thankful for the pink pony's inability to to feel awkward, or at all quiet.
The alien Twilight remembered as the Captain visibly hesitated before speaking. "We're humans. Our species, I mean. We're actually, uh, travellers, but we ran into some... trouble, and ended up crashin' down on this planet." The Captain went back on the offensive almost instantly. "Now, you're gonna explain to me jus' how you made it up past us, all the way here, through several locked doors."
Pinkie bounced up to the Captain before Twilight could even open her mouth. "Magic!"
"...S'cuse me?" He turned to Twilight, maybe hoping that she would have a more sensible answer.
Twilight nodded, shamefacedly. "I teleported us both outside. At least, I tried to." The unicorn hung her head. "I got... mixed up, and I ran out of magical energy, so now Pinkie and I are kinda stuck here. Unless... you let us go?"
Twilight Sparkle gazed up at Mal with innocent, questioning eyes. Mal stared back. Yes, they were cute and innocent and adorable, and no, Mal was most definitely not going to fall for it. Nuh-uh. He wasn't going to let them go yet. He'd let them leave the ship when... Well, he'd have to let them free eventually. Even if he had no idea when, or how. Or how to deal with the possibility of Reavers. Or how to get off this planet. Or if there were any more of these things, that might not be so peacefully inclined.
One thing at a time. The ponies had spoken of magic and teleportation. This was going in a direction Mal didn't entirely like. Zoe seemed to think the same. "You talked about 'teleporting' out of there? How?"
Twilight turned to face both Mal and Zoe. This was explaining magic. This was a question Twilight was more than happy to answer. "Well, I'm a unicorn, which means I can use magic. To teleport, it's just a simple matter of focusing enough magic to create a field of energy capable of creating a, uh, sort of tunnel. All you have to do is control the magic, and tell it where the tunnel goes..." She trailed off. The Captain and the darker skinned female alien - Zoe, Twilight struggled to recall - traded a glance.
Twilight had the horrible notion that she knew just what the two were considering, as impossible as it might've been. There had been next to no magic for Twilight to draw on within the ship. Was it possible... did these aliens...
"Zoe, upstairs. Wash, you stay with Inara and Book. Make sure our guests don't leave your sight, don mai?"
Wash nodded. Satisfied, Zoe and the Captain left silently through a doorway on the far side of the room. The silence continued as the two ponies and three humans all stood in the room. Inara and Book, still partially dumbstruck, traded glances with the Twilight and Pinkie, then at each other.
Wash cleared his throat. "So, how was your day?"
"So, this is really happenin'."
Zoe remained impassive. "Yes, Captain."
"They spoke about magic."
"Yes, Captain."
Mal looked up at Zoe from his seat in the pilot's chair. Zoe leaned on a console beside Mal. "What're the odds that this is all jus' me hallucinatin' after that hit on the head I took?"
Zoe just shrugged. "Couldn't say, Captain. It all seems fairly real to me."
"But magic, Zoe?!" Mal shot back. "Y'know where magic exists? In Old-Earth fairytales!"
"Mal, we've seen some pretty strange stuff in recent times..."
"We've seen creatures that tear men apart and take their flesh for their clothes. We've seen men come back from the dead with hearts stronger than what they where meant to have." Zoe almost flinched at the memory of her and Mal's fallen comrade and friend. "We've seen men look into the eyes of Reavers, and become them. Hell, we've seen a girl who had her brain taken apart by the Allience, and now seems able to read minds. All this stuff I can just about deal with. But this?" He swept his hand across the room in a wide gesture, before looking back up at his First-mate. "I don't know what to do, Zoe. Haven't a damn clue."
Zoe sighed slowly before speaking. "Have you been to see Kaylee yet? Things'll be simpler the sooner we get the ship fixed."
"...Yeah." Mal stood up. "Sure. We'll get the ship fixed, then ignore everything that's happened in the last half-hour, act like we never kicked a bunch'a aliens off our ship, and pray that the Reavers don't run us into the ground again."
Mal closed the cabin door behind him as he stormed out. The friction of rusted metal on metal was all that kept it from slamming.
"Gorramit..."
"...Again."
"Are you sure? It didn't seem to work the first six times."
"Yeah, just- ow! Not that hard!"
"Wash, I'm fairly certain they are real. Can I stop now?"
"Uh, we're standing right here..."
Three pairs of eyes turned to Twilight Sparkle. Wash cradled his forearm, red from where Inara had been coerced into pinching it repeatedly. Inara still wasn't sure how that had happened. Shepard Book observed silently from behind the kitchen's counter.
"Wash, why don't you ask them for yourself?" Wash could tell that Inara's nerves were just beginning to fray. He was surprised that she had managed to keep it together for this long, as if what had just happened had been a relatively normal occurrence. Seeking to change the subject, he turned to Twilight.
"So... Twilight Sparkle. How long've you been living here?"
"Umm... My whole life."
"Ah."
...
"So, how long is that?"
"Oh, well I'm just t-"
"The world split open, and horrible beasts poured out from the cracks. Star Wormwood fell, and the people were made bitter before they died." River was stood in the doorway leading down towards the cargo bay, her gaze somehow capturing the entire room, while she looked at no-one in particular.
Shepard Book turned sharply towards River. "What did you just say?"
River smiled at Pinkie Pie. "I like her mane. It looks soft."
The room was silent. River turned, and walked back out as if nothing had happened. Wash turned in his seat to Book. "How long was she standing there?"
Book didn't answer.
"Kaylee?!"
"Mal?"
"Gimme some good news."
Kaylee squirmed out from underneath the mass of wires and parts that spanned almost the whole length of the engine, taking up most of the room. "Hey, Mal, sorry I snapped at you earlier. I just..." She gave a small smile as she stood up. "I didn't expect you to go crashin' the ship so much when I took this job."
"That's why we got you Kaylee: only mechanic in the 'verse who puts up with my planet-crashin' habits. So, what've we got?"
Kaylee's smile faded as quickly as it had come. "Well, the main conductor coil's been jarred loose. It means we'll be runnin' on backup power, but I should be able t' set it back. Even then, though, Wash fried a couple'a fuses when we came down, so unless we replace those, it won't matter if we have the conductor or not. The fuel-line runnin’ to both thrusters got shot pretty bad, there’s some radiation leakin’ out from the-“
“Radiation?!”
“Yeah, but it’s no big deal.”
“I’d say it’s a pretty big deal!”
Kaylee gave a small smirk. “No, Mal... It’s being released by this generator down here...” she went to crouch down beside the generator, pointing to a component on the underside Mal couldn’t fully make out. “But it’s being absorbed by this outer plate here...” She shifted her hand slightly to point at a half-cylinder of metal, with transparent tubes running the length of it. “...So that it winds up in the decontamination unit through these tubes.” She gave a smile, pointing out the transparent tubes feeding away into some unseen part of the ship. “Just, y’know, don’t go sticking your finger in there if you want to keep it!"
“Right...” Mal begun, still wary of the hazard. “So, how long until you can get us back up?”
“...I can’t...”
“What?”
Kaylee sat down on a metal step, facing the mess of wires and pipes. “I can’t fix her, Captain."
Mal was dumbstruck. "But... You just said-"
"Those're jus' the smaller problems." Kaylee looked up to Mal. "Don't you get it? When we came down, Serenity lost a buncha vital parts, an' I can't get her flyin' again without those parts! I can't help her..."
Mal was silent for a few seconds before speaking. "Do what you can for her. We'll see what we can do later."
Kaylee threw her arms up despondently. "Nothin' I can do unless we buy new parts, or find the ones that fell off. If we found the old stuff, Ah reckon Ah could rig something together, jus' until we get to the next planet." She sighed. "At this point, it'd take a miracle to get her flyin' again."
"Do what you can for her." With that, Mal turned and left. He wasn't ready to deal with telling her about the... the aliens on board. Not yet. He still wasn't sure what to make of the situation. At the moment, he, Zoe, Wash, Book, Inara, and maybe River knew. That left Kaylee, Simon and Jayne.
"Infirmary it is..."
"Whole... A whole buncha 'em. Y'saw 'em too, right?"
Simon looked over at Jayne mumbling on the operating chair. The memory of the Reavers must still have been fresh in his mind. Simon did his best to put on a comforting tone, while examining a small hypodermic needle. "It's okay, you're safe, they can't get you here."
Jayne continued his delirious ramblings, apparently oblivious to Simon's presence. "...Were so many of 'em..."
"Jayne, they're gone now, okay?"
"...But... I knew, just how t' deal with 'em. Jus' took 'em to all t' bed at once..."
Simon just barely managed to catch the needle that had slipped upon hearing what Jayne had said.
"What?!"
"Jus' ripped off their clothes, the whole lotta 'em, an' started off right in their-"
"-Time for sleep now, Jayne... Please." Simon quickly but precisely injected the contents of the needle into Jayne's neck. Jayne's half-lucid throes quickly ceased as the sedative rapidly came into effect, and his words slurred to a halt, the last, disturbing sentence just managing to slip out before he fell to sleep.
"...Finest damn... Whorehouse... Ah ever... in'ercoursed in..."
Simon was left staring, doing his hardest to keep his imagination from forming images from Jayne's words.
...
"Simon."
"Mal?"
The Captain's head appeared from behind the door, the rest of him following as he stepped into the infirmary. "How's he holdin' up?" Mal nodded to the sleeping form of Jayne.
"'I've sedated him. That bite wound... It's become infected. I've already given him a dose of antibiotics, but it'll take a few days until its okay for him to walk. What's going on back there?"
"It's nothin'. Just an argument."
"Did this argument happen to involve explosives of some sort?"
Oh, the explosion. When Twilight had appeared in front of Book and Inara, there had been a noise, like a grenade, that had drawn Mal, Zoe, and Wash's attention in the first place. But how to explain it to Simon?
"No, that was caused by the two magical alien talking ponies teleporting inside the ship."
...
"Simon, just stay here and look after Jayne, 'kay?"
Simon let out a sigh. "Right..."
"But... why would anypony do that?!"
Wash looked up at Twilight from across the table. "Honestly, none of us here really know for sure. That's what Simon's been trying to find out. Just a while back, he snuck her into a hospital on the planet Ariel, so that-"
"Wait, 'planet Ariel'... You mean, like another world?!" Twilight's eyes widened with excitement.
"Well, yeah. There's hundreds of planets up there," Wash pointed vaguely to the ceiling of the ship's dining room. "Each with at least thousands of humans living there. Some even have billions of people on one planet.
Twilight's mind reeled, the story of River temporarily forgotten. Billions of people - Twilight assumed that was a plural for humans - all living in one world?! She would've thought it physically impossible. Then again, she would've thought of aliens as impossible, too.
"So... you've been to all these worlds?" she asked in awe.
Wash shrugged. "Well, we've been to a fair few. I mean, most of 'em are pretty much similar, but they all have their own differences, things that set them apart. Y'know, customs and traditions, and the like." He leant in closer to Twilight, a sly look on his face. "Actually there was one place I once visited for a while. D'you wanna know what they did there for a hobby?"
"What?"
Wash took a breath, preparing to drop the sentence that would leave Twilight speechless... and was interrupted as Mal walked into the room.
"Wash?"
"Ah, what, huh? Yes, Captain?" Wash fumbled, backing into his chair as Zoe turned to suppress a smile.
"What're you doin'?"
"Oh, I was just telling Twilight about the, uhh... Y'know, the thing, with the juggling."
"...Right. Zoe, about earlier-"
Zoe cut Mal off with a shake of her head. "Doesn't matter now, sir. What did Kaylee say?"
That was that out of the way, then. Mal had apologised, and Zoe had accepted it, both of them communicating in a manner only they could understand, leaving Wash, Book, Inara, and the ponies exchanging confused glances with each other. The glances quickly stopped, however, as all eyes turned to Mal.
"Kaylee can't fix the ship. Not without parts. Jayne's leg is infected, and he'll be out for a few days. We..." Mal looked to the two ponies. The purple one, 'Twilight Sparkle', was looking expectantly at Mal, absorbing every word he said. The pink one, 'Pinkie Pie', was rummaging through the food cupboards. Mal looked back to Zoe, signalling to her with a nod of his head. Zoe complied, and followed Mal to just within the hallway beyond the crowded dining room.
"Zoe."
"Yes, Captain."
"The ship's missin' parts, and we can't go flyin' without them. I reckon some of the stuff will've dropped nearby, so if we can find those parts, we might have a chance at gettin' back in the air."
"You're suggesting we go out there."
"Yeah."
Zoe was silent.
"We need their help." Mal continued before Zoe had the opportunity to cut him off. "I know, this is surreal, and nobody has any idea what's going on. It's just like you said, the sooner we sort this out, the better."
"Actually, I'm fairly sure I said something to the effect of: the sooner we get off this rock, the better."
Mal nodded. "The two aren't mutually exclusive. But we might need to ask for help from those... ponies, back there."
Zoe remained stoic, yet the undertone of disbelief in her voice gave away what she was really thinking. "Mal, think about what you just said for a second."
"I know, but, as stupid as this may sound, they... know the land. We'll get this done quicker if we get them to help. Besides, they seem friendly enough. Just... treat 'em like people."
"'Treat 'em like people,' sir?"
Mal shrugged. "Y'know, just... really short people."
"...Right."
Mal turned back to the doorway, but stopped himself as another idea came to surface. "Zoe, can you call up Kaylee and Simon? River, too, if y' see her."
"Yessir." Zoe made off towards the infirmary; Mal stepped back into the dining room, and over to Shepard Book. He leant against the counter, facing away from the rest of the room - and the ponies - as he spoke.
"You seem to be taking all this awfully well, preacher."
"How do you mean?" Book only glanced up briefly from the tattered book laying open on the counter.
"Figured aliens didn't sit too snugly where the Bible was concerned."
Book looked up fully this time, a slight smile of bemusement on his face. "I was not aware that these particular aliens 'sat snugly' where our current understanding of science was concerned, at all."
"Touché."
"Although..." The Shepard drew a breath, deciding how best to voice his next thought. "I must admit, I am still a little... disturbed, not to mention shaken up."
"Oh?"
"They just look so... human. Just look at their faces!"
Mal did. Twilight and Pinkie were both listening to Wash, most likely giving the life story of every crew member on board. They really did seem human. Or, close to it. Sure, their eyes were much larger, but that only made them seem more... expressive. Their muzzles didn't come forward so much as a normal horse's, so they almost seemed like noses.
"These creatures are not the result of evolution alone, I believe."
"Thought the Bible wasn't too keen on evolution."
Book let out an uncharacteristic scoff. "Get with the times, Mal. Have you never heard of alternate interpretations?"
Mal blinked. He couldn't tell if Book was being sarcastic, screwing with him, or both. Probably both. He turned his attention back onto the two ponies listening to, and in the case of Pinkie Pie, interrupting, Wash's tales. Mal focused in particular on the eyes. The Shepard was right. No creature could have eyes like that. It just seemed so... impossible. And yet, here sat two beings who had completely gone against that notion.
Mal found himself looking into- examining, Twilight's eyes. Purple. Mal fought the urge to refer to them as 'violet'. Also rounder and larger than any other animal, human or not, that Mal could recall. He could actually see her irises, and the pupils within them, contract and dilate as Wash highlighted certain points of his stories. Both ponies' eyes, despite their size, shone with intelligence, exactly like the gaze of a human.
The two ponies almost seemed...
"Cartoony."
"I'm sorry?"
Mal looked back at Book. "Y'know, cartoons. Animated shows on the Cortex?"
"I've... caught a few glances of some, I guess, but-"
"Look at'em. Just, focus really closely."
Book did as Mal did, and diverted his whole attention to the ponies.
"Don't they seem jus' a bit off t' you? Like... all the detail you'd expect isn't all there."
"I suppose... I guess you could say they don't sit too snugly."
Mal let out a small bark of laughter. "Sit snugly into what?"
Book didn't answer. Mal was just trying to find an answer to his own question, as Zoe stepped back into the room, Simon, Kaylee, and River following.
"Sir, I told 'em we had some 'guests' on boar-"
"Son-of-a bitch!" Simon half-leapt, half-stumbled backwards.
Kaylee's reaction was quite the opposite. With a sharp intake of breath, she rushed forward to meet the equally exuberant pink pony halfway, almost squealing as she did so.
Pinkie Pie extended a han- hoof to Kaylee, which she took happily. "Hi I'm Pinkie Pie pleased to meet you what's your name what's your favourite colour oh oh when's your birthday because mine's only three hundred and forty six days away which is nineteen less than when it was my birthday last time and..."
"Zoe, you never said they were so... adorable!" Kaylee looked back at Zoe from where she was kneeling with Pinkie Pie, huge grins plastered across both their faces.
Mal turned to Zoe. "Jus' how much did you say, Zoe?" he hadn't expected Kaylee to act so... openly, with something so new and strange. That's Kaylee for you.
"Just said that we met some 'odd locals' who seemed harmless enough."
Mal thought back to the explosion caused by Twilight Sparkle. Apparently, she had gotten mixed up with her 'teleporting'. Didn't make it any less harmless. If the sound alone was anything to go by, it was sheer luck that Book and Inara had only been rattled by the explosion, if the sound of it was anything to go by.
"Right." Mal straightened. "I guess it's time t' reintroduce ourselves." He smiled at the room, the plan forming in his head finally restoring some order to his mind.
Simon could only stand there, mouth agape, staring as Kaylee shook hands- hooves- limbs, with a pink talking anthropomorphic horse.