"Not guilty," Firebolt said snippishly, "That was an accident, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, and how the hay am I supposed to use magic? I'm an earth pony!"
Celestia's eyes narrowed at him, and Luna shouted, "You will respect the court, knave!"
Firebolt opened his mouth to say something stupid, since he got sarcastic when he got nervous, but I smacked the back of his head before he could dig us even deeper. Celestia stared at me contemplatively for a moment, then said, "Twilight, please present the evidence."
The purple pony stepped forward, and I flinched away from the surge of hatred I felt from Starlight pointed in her direction. I reminded Star to control herself, since this wasn't the time for settling an old grudge. Twilight levitated a scroll in front of her face, and read, "At 3:47 P.M., Canterlot was attacked by an unknown enemy in flying metal ships and using highly advanced weaponry. The city was overrun in mere minutes, the Guard hard pressed to hold the invaders back. The defendant Starlight was seen exiting the 4:15 train upon it's arrival in the city, already armed with an alien weapon and her human wearing a suit of unknown composition and origin. They killed a pony who exploded into a cloud of green gas, a possible side affect of their weapons, then moved deeper into the city. They reappeared 10 minutes later at the entrance to the palace, Firebolt having joined them at some point in between, where they proceeded to kill four more ponies, including one of the royal guards, before vanishing again, only to reappear cutting their way through the royal hedge maze in an attempt to attack the Princesses themselves. They surrendered upon capture, and have been in a holding cell ever since. Both ponies and the human have displayed an unusual energy signature, speculated to be dark magic, although exactly what it is is unknown at this time." Twilight snapped the scroll shut and stepped back, ignoring Starlight's glare, then looked up at Celestia expectantly.
I frowned, thinking quickly. While most of the charges were false, the few that were real were bad enough to get the ponies a lengthy prison sentence, and me sent who-knows-where. However good the Princesses may be at fighting, they couldn't be in two places at the same time, and the aliens did have a tendency to attack multiple cities at once. Therefore, they needed help. Therefore, they needed me. Therefore, spending time doing anything but not fighting aliens would be time wasted. Therefore, I needed to get us out of here.
"Starlight, buy me some time," I said, closing my eyes and concentrating. "Get as many charges as you can dropped, and if I'm not ready by then, stall a little. I've still got a trick I haven't used yet. Firebolt, I'm sorry I dragged you into this."
"I should hope so," he growled, "Just make sure this plan of yours actually works."
"The evidence has been presented," Celestia said, as calm as the eye of a hurricane, "What are your statements?"
"I'll do my best," I answered, then shut up so I focus. Dampening my Psi so the energy wasn't visible was a lot harder than it sounded.
Starlight stepped up and said some things, but I was too busy working to really pay attention to what she was saying, although I did pick up on the tone. She was irate, and Celestia responded harshly. Firebolt defended her, and that seemed to make it worse. Double Strike came in at some point, and Starlight emotions went crazy after that, but still I focused. However, she got the time I needed, and I finished just before the final verdict.
"Very well, then," Celestia was saying, only barely keeping the anger out of her voice, "Since you refused to explain yourselves adequately, I find Starlight Glimmer and Firebolt guilty on the charges of human fighting, ponyslaughter, and dark magic. You are sentence to 15 years in prison, and your human will be put up for adoption after he has been rehabilitated. Take them away." With a snort of disgust, she turned to the side and began speaking quietly with Twilight while I eavesdropped shamelessly. "Twilight, I believe you would be interested in studying their weapons?" Twilight's eyes got big and her tail started twitching. Celestia smiled, taking that as a yes. "Then I leave them in your care. Let me know as soon as you find something."
Meanwhile, eight guards detached themselves from the walls and surrounded us, leading us out of the throne room and back towards the dungeons. Just as I'd hoped. I struck, and seven of the guards froze in place, while the eighth looked around in confusion. Before she could react any further, I yanked out my arch thrower and stunned the poor pegasus. While Starlight had been defending us, I had been busy, slowly but surely working my way into every mind in the room. Every non-psionic mind, at least, since I wasn't yet skilled enough to overpower someone with the gift or avoid detection if I tried to infiltrate. Normal minds are much less sensitive, after all. Mind Control may be a rather dubious power, but it was also the only way we were getting out of here without a fight. The extra time taken had made the action much more subtle than usual, allowing for more control time and fewer bands of purple psi to give us away. The only clue was the purple glow coming from our eyes, and that was mostly hidden by the glamour worked into their armor. With the guards under my control, we had our disguise, and slowly but surely made our way out to the gardener's shed.
Twilight was waiting for us, weapons in tow, along with a pair of pants for me to change into. Magical powerhouse or not, she didn't have a drop of Psi in her, and that made her vulnerable. Once we were out of sight, I sent the guards back to their posts to wait for the Mind Control to wear off, leaving only Star, Firebolt, Twilight, who Star was covering in fertilizer, and myself. I was halfway through changing while Firebolt and Starlight loaded our gear into a cart used to get more gardening supplies when I heard footsteps outside. They stopped just outside the door, then thumped in an odd rhythm for a few moments. Twilight twitched, and tapped her right fore-hoof against the ground. It must have been some kind of code, because the next moment a human burst through the door, slamming it into the wall.
He was tall, taller than me, and well built with long straight brown hair. His face had a nasty scar, running across his nose and leading to his right eye, which was whited out. The other eye, however, was alert, intelligent. I instantly knew this human was no animal, and reacted accordingly.
"You know, Twilight," I said amiably, as I stepped over the human curled into a ball at my feet. I knew she could hear me since she was strong enough to break my control, if only a little. "It's amazing what panic can do to a person: shortness of breath, inability to think or move. Really, it's quite useful." I poked her horn teasingly. Some part of me wondered what I was doing, but the rest was cheering me on. "Don't worry," I continued, "We'll be out of here soon enough, and if I ever see you again, it's too soon. Starlight, you ready to go?"
She didn't respond right away, mainly because she was busy staring at my chest. I looked down, and realized with some surprise that I'd grown muscles. I was in fairly decent shape before, but now I was ripped. Sweet. "Ok, that goes in the pros column," I said.
Star rolled her eyes, found her voice, and sighed. "Let's get going," she said as she hitched herself up to the cart, which conveniently hid her cutie mark. We made our way back into the city, blending in easily with the crowd. A pony pulling a cart with a human walking alongside her was a fairly common sight, and without our equipment to make us stand out, we didn't even get a second glance. Firebolt trailed us a couple of steps back so he wouldn't seem to be part of the group, which broke the profile that would no doubt be on the search warrant for our arrest.
"Ok,", I said, eyes scanning for guards, "The next step is to get some more people, people who can research the aliens for us. We also need to get you guys some armor, asap, and that will require engineers. If you get hit now, you're pretty much dead. Starlight, which way to the royal labs?"
"They're on the second level, adjacent to the academy." she replied, "The building is connected to the palace, but isn't actually a part of it. If we want more ponies like me, that's where we need to go. Speaking of research," she continued, changing course to loop around to the right building, "Firebolt, what do you do for a living, anyway?""
"Fireworks," he replied easily, "I mix em' up and set em' off."
"Can you make one of these?" I asked, sending a rough mental sketch of a rocket+launcher and a hand grenade.
He stumbled, looking a bit queasy. "That's sick," he spat out, "I like it. But getting back on track, how are supposed to convince somepony to join us? We're crooks now."
"I think we've got some bargaining material," I said, trying not to grin as I looked at the cart.
Canterlot Castle
By the time the guards found Twilight, she was in full panic-mode, hugging the life out of her human Max and crying an endless stream of tears. She ended up collapsing before she could recount what had happened, and had to be carried to bed while Max explained the situation to Celestia.
~I'm still not sure what hit me,~ he said, his thoughts straying back to Twilight, ~When Twilight didn't come back when she said she would, I went to go find her. It took me a while, but I eventually overheard one of the maids gossiping about her carrying some strange items out to the gardens, and how she wouldn't respond to any attempt to start a conversation. That didn't sound like Twilight, so I followed her, and found myself in front of the shed. I asked if she was in there, and got a broken call for help in hoof language. Then I broke through the door and-~ he stopped, his eyes widening in surprise.
"Well?" said Celestia, doing her best to keep her impatience in check. "What did you see?"
~It was the human.~ He stated with finality. ~I think he's like me, only he's got...something else, as well. He looked me in the eye, and it was like staring into a demon's nightmare. I was so freaked out that by the time I recovered he was long gone, and Twilight was crushing me underneath her.~
The halfhearted attempt at humor fell flat, and Celestia's brow furrowed as she began to pace. "This is a most disturbing development. I'll have to think on this. Max, you should go to Twilight, I think she's going to need your support."
Max nodded, turned, and all but sprinted out of the room. He didn't know what had happened to her, but no one messed with Twilight. No. One.
Celestia, meanwhile, was kicking herself for not giving that slap in the throne room more thought. She couldn't believe she'd let another Anomaly slip past her unnoticed, and was determined to not have it happen again. With that in mind, she went to visit the only guard that might know something, the one that had been electrocuted instead of whatever had happened to the others. Celestia was determined to find the truth, and this mare could be her only lead, since the other guards were reporting memory loss.
88888888
Singularity took one last look around the lab before he locked up, marking things off on a checklist as he went. Clean glassware, check, stored samples, check. Preservation spell on the corpses, check. tables wiped, floors mopped, all good. With a self satisfied nod, he closed the door with his magic and locked it in one smooth motion. Blowing his green hair out of his eyes, he walked through the empty walls of the new Xenology department, devoted solely to studying the attackers from earlier that day. He'd stayed late examining the remains of one of the strange weapons, but still hadn't made any real progress on it. It ran on an unknown power source using an unknown material to create an unknown state of matter which it fired using an unknown force. It was equal parts frustrating and fascinating, and he couldn't wait to come back tomorrow and try again.
After leaving the lab behind him, he started on his usual route back to his apartment, ducking through side alleys in an attempt to save time. As he passed by a fork in the path, he heard a rustle to his left, followed by a clatter as a glowing green object skittered to a stop in front of him. Curious, he picked it up and inspected it, his eyes growing wider and his expression more delighted with every second. It was a working alien weapon! The find of the century! Turning to see who had thrown it, he spotted a pale unicorn mare standing beside an odd looking human. The mare spoke, her voice cool and calm, "Come walk with us if you want to learn how to build more of those."