Zachary slowly trotted into the town south of the portal, barely giving the “Welcome to Ponyville” sign a second glance. He had no idea what awaited him, and at the moment, he didn’t care. Six earth ponies with curly or poofy manes gasped when they saw him and ran off, which was a bit confusing to him, but he shrugged and kept moving. Apparently, a bland appearance wouldn’t always guarantee blending in. But even if he couldn’t fully avoid all attention, no one here knew he wasn’t a pony except for him, which was good.
Continuing through the town, Zachary found that most ponies barely gave him a second glance, meaning that the group of six were probably not the norm around here. His current form made him mostly unmemorable, which was the whole point of changing to the most neutral tone in existence: most wouldn’t pay him that much attention.
After entering a back alley, Zachary looked around to make sure no one had paid any attention to him, then shifted his form from an earth pony to a unicorn so he could use magic, which he used immediately.
He didn’t have actual spy training, but he’d still learned some things about eavesdropping with magic, just in case. He magically enhanced his hearing so he could easily pick up conversations, then waited for any sounds or words to catch his interest while munching on a closbeast teriyaki MRE taken from a pocket in his disguised armor.
After cursing how the pony mouth only had molars, Zachary shifted some of his teeth into more appropriate teeth for what he was eating and continued to wait. The conversations he heard were interesting, yes, but there was little useful information to glean from them.
But, after another hour, his patience paid off.
“Lyra, honey,” a male voice whispered, just barely caught by Zachary’s enhanced hearing, “It’s almost time for today’s meeting. We’d better hurry if we’re to address the secession movement again. Do you remember today’s secret location?”
“Applejack’s cellar, Worthy,” a female voice whispered back. “The children will most likely already be there. I heard there’s going to be some really big news this time.”
“Besides the news we’re bringing?” the male voice asked quietly.
“”Yes,” the female voice replied. “Something about the Everfree, I think.”
The voices fell silent after that, and Zachary poked his head out of the alley to see a mint green unicorn mare and a blue unicorn stallion headed towards a road leading to the outskirts of the town.
Thinking quickly, Zachary dispelled the eavesdropping spell and teleported to the farthest point on the road they were headed for that he could see, then shifted his colors to a camouflage pattern to blend in.
After the pair passed him, he carefully and silently followed them, genuinely curious about a “secession movement”. Maybe he could find sympathizers among them.
The pair didn’t notice him once as he followed them along the path, all the way to a farm, where he hung back and waited while they approached a farmhouse and knocked on the door three times.
Zachary didn’t pay attention to the exchange between the couple and the orange mare who answered the door, instead memorizing the appearance of the foyer of the building. After the pair had disappeared into the building, Zachary waited for three minutes to be sure that they wouldn’t see him, then teleported into the building.
He heard nothing at all. Apparently, this meeting was soundproofed in some way or another. But, no matter how well something was soundproofed, there was always a way to pick up sound, for even the tiniest vibrations could still be picked up with the right reception.
After taking a couple seconds to think, Zachary changed his ears to resemble massive bat ears. The increased sensitivity allowed him to barely make out muffled sounds from further ahead, so he trotted forward and searched the building until he found a hidden staircase where the sounds were loudest. It was still almost impossible to hear, but this had to be the way in.
After temporarily shifting a hoof into a hand, Zachary pulled back the box covering the staircase and began his descent.
As soon as he passed the box, the sounds of speech were no longer muffled, and he hissed in pain from the assault on his extra-sensitive ears before shifting them back into normal pony ones and moving the box back into place.
With that done, Zachary shifted the hand back into a hoof and continued onwards. Many voices were speaking at the same time, so it was incredibly difficult to make out what any one voice said.
As he reached the bottom of the staircase, Zachary stopped and listened carefully as the voices stopped.
“Order, order! This meeting of the Ponyville Secession Movement will come to order!” the voice of the green mare from before declared. “First, it has come to my attention that somepony had news concerning the Everfree Forest to present at the start of this meeting. Could said pony please speak up and tell all present about it?”
“That pony would be me, Sugarcube,” a female voice drawled. “Cousin Valencia Orange from Manehattan sent meh a letter a couple weeks ago. She swears she saw Trixie in Manehattan befer they chased her outta town. Said she were headin’ fer the Everfree.”
“Trixie?” a musical female voice cut in. “You mean the same Trixie who can’t perform anywhere because of her anti-ponification views and made her entire wagon disappear while surrounded by the Solar Flares? That Trixie?”
“Yep, Melody, that Trixie,” the mare with the drawl replied. “Valencia’s certain she’ll wind up in Ponyville from the path she was takin’.”
“Well, we’ll probably need somepony to meet her to let her know she’s safe here,” the blue stallion’s voice spoke up. “Applebloom? Could you do that for us?”
“‘Course Ah can!” another mare answered with a similar drawl to that of the mare who spoke earlier. “Pip can handle the kids while Ah’m gone!”
“Thank you, Applebloom,” the green mare’s voice said. “Now, I also have news for everypony. Apparently, the military lost a battle on Earth over a month ago. Some force defeated Princess Birthright’s personal unit and drove all newfoals and trueponies out of New Hoofington. If we could get into contact with them, it would be most helpful. Does anypony have any ideas?”
“No need for that, ma’am,” Zachary suddenly spoke up after returning to the taupe earth pony form he’d adopted earlier. “You don’t need to go to all that trouble.”
The group gasped as Zachary trotted around the corner and revealed himself.
“Who are you?” the blue stallion demanded as he approached Zachary with a look of distrust on his face, horn sparking furiously. “Were you sent by Princess Celestia? Are you a spy for the crown?”
“Oh, my apologies,” Zachary replied with a shake of his head. “I didn’t mean to give the wrong impression. I’m not an enemy. I’m a friend. Watch.”
With the slightest of thoughts, Zachary returned to his default form, his armor and civvies automatically regaining their proper shape and covering him once more. He immediately removed his helmet to reveal his human appearance and said, “I would have nothing to gain from aiding your enemies, for as you can see, I’m what your enemies desire to destroy.”
The room gasped again, this time in disbelief.
“A human?” the green mare exclaimed. “But humans can’t survive in a magical environment! How is this possible?”
“Simple,” Zachary replied. “You were lied to. Humans can survive just fine in a magical environment. But even so, I’m not human. I’m from the army that beat back Birthright’s forces.” After walking all the way to the center of the room where the green mare was standing, he held out a hand and said, “Corporal Zachary Jenkins of the Dataramp Fifth Regiment at your service. I’m a member of military of the Proteocracy of Clericorum.”
“Lyra Heartstrings,” the mare replied after meeting his hand with a hoof for a shake. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir. But you said you aren’t human. What are you, then?”
“A Protean,” Zachary answered simply. “That’s how I was able to transform from a pony to the form you see now. I come from another star system. My ancestors left Earth over six thousand years ago to help found a colony on the planet Centaurus, orbiting the closest star to Earth besides Earth’s sun. The ship never made it, and instead crashed after being warped to another star system: the Lalande 21185 system, eight light years from Earth. We combined our biology with that of a race of humanoid ant people called klackons and became Proteans: the pinnacle of human and klackon development. We can change shape and appearance to become practically anything that lives. We are now trying to liberate Earth so we can share the gift of Proteanhood with our Terran brethren.”
“Are there more of you here?” a stallion asked.
“Not in Equestria,” Zachary replied with a shake of his head. “I was taken captive by Princess Birthright after helping win the Battle for Washington, D.C.. Proteans are immune to virtually everything, and Celestia wanted to find a way to overcome this so a new ponification potion could work on us. I was stuck as their lab rat for a little over a month before I managed to escape. I destroyed all of their progress in my escape with the exception of the newest version of the potion and the notes used to make it. I stole both items to take back to my people so we can create a counter to it to stay a step ahead of Celestia.”
“Why didn’t you help Earth during the Conversion War?” a mare demanded. “You could’ve prevented all of this!”
“We didn’t have the technology to get here yet,” Zachary replied sadly. “My people only recently developed the EarthGate, which is how we made it back to Earth. We plan to undo everything that happened, though.”
“How?” another stallion asked. “Ponification is permanent!”
“We would beg to differ,” Zachary replied with a warm smile. “Doctor Fleck M. Eureka has managed to deponify three former newfoals already. They were artificially evolved into Proteans, and they provided us with much of the knowledge we’ve been using in this war so far.”
The ponies in the room stared at Zachary in stunned silence, so he continued.
“There will be more Proteans coming to Equestria soon, though,” he added. “I’ve sent a message asking for a group of spies to be sent to assist me. And now that they know that there’s a secession movement, they’ll be even more eager to assist.”
“Wait, how do they already know?” Lyra asked in confusion.
“Simple,” Zachary chuckled. “I have an implant in my brain that records all of the experiences of my senses to be used to train future soldiers so they’ll be veterans before they fight their first real battle. They see everything I see, hear everything I hear, and so on. I don’t have the means to turn the implant off, myself, but whenever I go on leave, they turn it off so I can have my privacy.”
“So, would they be able to send troops to help us secede?” the blue stallion asked hopefully.
“Absolutely,” Zachary said with a nod. “Just say the word, and we’ll provide you with whatever you need to make your revolution a success.”
“We’ll need to meet with Princess Twilight Sparkle, first,” the stallion explained. “She’s who we plan on placing in charge of our new nation once we’ve broken away. She won’t let us actually start the secession until we can be sure that we won’t be wiped out by Celestia’s forces.”
“Well, with Protean help, I assure you that you’ll come out on top,” Zachary replied. “Let’s go see her, shall we?”
“We shall,” the stallion replied before announcing to the assembled ponies, “this meeting is now closed! The next meeting location will be Ponyville Elementary’s basement, a week from now. Begin preparations for our big move in the meantime. Dismissed!”
As the ponies dispersed, Zachary shifted back into the form of an all-taupe earth pony and followed Lyra and the stallion (who revealed his name to be “Noteworthy”) out of the cellar, through the farmhouse, and onto the road back to town.