Aliens and Predators
Greene
Tearwing was the first to make a move. "I hear you've moved into my room," he said.
"Yours?" she asked curiously. She shook her head. "Irrelevant. Ambassadors. Talk." She shivered briefly. It was so cold.
Fiamma - Ember? - nodded. "She is correct, let us have these talks over dinner, as is custom."
Celestia and Luna both nodded, before the latter spoke. "Tis a most intelligent suggestion. Come ambassadors, let us be off! We wilt be with thee shortly after we lower the sun and raise the moon."
In short order, they all filed into the castle and headed to a dining room. Elizabeth wondered where Fluttershy and Twilight were staying. They weren't here, she knew that. But then... where? Fluttershy had fallen asleep in her bed, but as for the unicorn...
She decided she didn't care. She had more important things to be concerned about, at present. Far more important things.
The sister alicorns, after vanishing briefly to perform their cosmic duty, sat side by side, as always. Elizabeth got the seat next to the solar diarch, while Sokara found herself next to Luna, and Tearwing next to the zebra. Tearwing's guards were dismissed and told by their charge to get something to eat, something about 'safer place for griffons than ponyland'. She didn't fully understand what that meant, but decided not to worry about it. One of those 'individual' things. Next to Elizabeth sat the minotaur Tungsten Mind, and Fiamma had pushed aside a row of seats next to him to sit on her haunches. They didn't have to wait long for their meals, as servants - including the Emerald Fields equine - came trotting in, move-thoughting or carrying platters of food, without the metal domes they'd had on Elizabeth's first day.
Both the griffon and herself received a slab of cooked meat. She frowned upon noticing that it wasn't anywhere near the portions she had been used to getting during her stay, but she could make due. After all, she could go a long time without food, and if she was really in a bad spot she always had the warmth of her Home to absorb. She was tempted to tear into it, but a look from Celestia stayed her hunger.
Sokara, Luna, and Celestia all got a salad, each looking less enthusiastic about it than the last. Tungsten Mind had orbs of flesh mixed in with pasty yellow strands - her memories of Before whispered pasta, and she crushed them to end the sinking drowning choking - that revolted Elizabeth. Fiamma had the strangest meal of all; her plate was loaded with a heap of colored rocks. Green ones, red ones, blue ones, even a few black ones.
Their glasses were all filled with water, with pitchers of the stuff located within arm's reach. Elizabeth eyed each of them warily. She swore, if any of those water-holders moved so much as an inch towards her...
"A toast," Celestia said, lifting her glass with magic. "To the sharing of knowledge between worlds, and the forging of new bonds of trust."
"Here here!" the minotaur boomed, all the others raising a glass in their own way. Elizabeth eyed hers nervously. It was wet wet wet.
Before long, the ambassadors were tearing into their meal. Elizabeth downed her flesh almost instantly, and set herself to staring intently at Tearwing as he quite literally pecked away at his meal. After a while the novelty of that faded, and she looked over at Fiamma, eating gems. Her powerful jaws crunched and shattered the minerals into jagged shards that didn't seem to puncture the inside of her throat when she swallowed. Greene was quite impressed by that. She wondered if she could do that.
... she probably could, but she doubted that rocks would make her any less hungry.
"Well now," Tearwing said as the silent meal began wrapping up. "Let us begin. I'll start with the first question; Elizabeth Greene, are you here to invade our world and enslave and/or exterminate its races?"
"Tearwing, you foal! Watch your questions, surely that is not her goal!"
"Isn't," Greene rasped in response. What a silly question. What would griffons possibly have that she wanted? "How invade?"
"My apologies for the rash question, though I hope you can all understand the rationale behind it. Best to get the unpleasant business out of the way first, wouldn't you all agree?" There was a chorus of affirmatives from around Elizabeth. Her skin was crawling. All these... politics made her feel ill. But it was needed if she was to get information. She had to figure out why her Blessing wasn't working. "Now that that's out of the way, let me ask the question we are all wondering; how are you here?"
She shrugged. "Don't know. Was in... a horrible place, and then it was bright white and blue and I was here."
Tungsten Mind rubbed his chin. "That's certainly magic. What kind of magic can do something like that? Just accidentally pluck an alien from another world and drop it here?" He paused, letting that sink in. "Or, perhaps, intentionally."
He let that settle, before Luna spoke, her eyes narrowing. "What art thou suggesting?"
"It's not out of the realm of possibility that someone cast a spell to deliberately whisk Elizabeth from her home world to here. Now, we don't even know if it's the case, but what are we going to do if we find this person? Better to have a plan now and not need it, than need one and not have one."
Greene pondered this. "Thank them," she said. "Took me from bad place, saved me. Second chance. Thank them." Bless them, she thought. Though seeing as she wasn't certain about that, she didn't speak of her greatest gift.
"Was your situation truly so bad?" the griffon ambassador asked.
"Dark and cold," she said, her echos turning even more ominous with her word choice. "Could not move, could not be still. Could not shout and could not be quiet. Forgotten, but remembered." She hissed at the memories. That had truly been a bad place. How far gone was her Wayward Child to have done that to her? Did he even know what she suffered at his hand? "Good to be free."
"And why were you in this prison?" the dragon asked. "From how you describe it, it sounds like a punishment for criminal activity."
"Our old friend hath a valid point, Elizabeth," Luna said with steel in her voice. "Why was thou suffering so?"
"Wayward Child," she said simply. "Turned against me. Cursed me. Tried to help him but wouldn't reason." She sighed at the memory. She had failed her son.
"We see," the Night Princess said, her voice suddenly turning weary. "Thou had to fight one thy loved, but betrayed you." Others with poorer eyesight would've missed it, but Elizabeth noticed the tiny tear in the alicorn's right eye that she blinked away almost instantly. "At the very least, thy story is not at an end yet."
"Hold up!" Tungsten Mind said. "What exactly would drive your son to do that?"
"Blessing turned to Curse," she rasped. "Driven mad. Beyond help."
"Well then," Sokara said after a tense silence as the others digested the information, no doubt coming up with silly little political viewpoints to take on it. "Enough sorrow and woe. Now that you're on our world, where will you go?"
"Go?" Elizabeth asked.
"What the good ambassador means," Celestia said. "Is that while you appeared on Equestrian soil, you represent a valuable - and I apologize for referring to you in such a manner - resource. You have great knowledge, more than you may think, given your vastly different home. My sister and I can hardly keep you all to ourselves, yet it would not be in our best interest to let you loose either. Same goes for all others. So it simply comes down to this; where do you plan to take up residence?"
Elizabeth pondered this. Where would she make her Home? There were advantages to all the places. Equestria had high population centers. The Minotaurian Republic and Griffon Kingdoms both had large stores of flesh, due to their omnivorous and carnivorous residents. The Zebran Plains were large and wide open, but they were also dry, which was a plus. And while she knew little of the Dragon Highlands, there was bound to be something beneficial there.
But to spread her Blessing, population was priority. "Stay in Equestria for time," she said. She looked at each of the ambassadors in turn. "Visit other countries when finished here."
"And when you've visited all our nations?" Tearwing asked.
She shrugged. "See then."
"I see. May I recommend Aviona? It's quite lovely this time of year."
"Shameless self pedaling, I see," the zebra ambassador said. "Do now even extraequustrials need be subject to the arrogance of thee?"
Tearwing rolled his blue eyes. "Thee, Sokara? And it's not arrogance. I just feel she could relate very well to us. After all, there aren't that many sentient carnivores around. Maybe we could learn from each other. Swap hunting techniques and the like."
Tungsten Mind huffed, crossing his massive forearms, his suit tightening. "And what, pray tell, is wrong with being omnivorous?"
"Nothing," he said. "But it's just not the same." The griffon smirked, a great accomplishment with a beak. "But between us, make up your mind and start losing friends like the rest of us."
That, for some reason, caused a spell of light chuckles to pass through the table. Elizabeth had no idea why. She turned to Fiamma, a question burning in her mind.
"Fiamma or Ember?" she asked. "Language?"
Fiamma chuckled, her blazing eyes upturned with mirth. Greene stiffened. Laughing at her laughing laughing laughing! "Oh, no. I can see how you can make that mistake. You see, I'm much too large to come visit Canterlot properly. However, my daughter Ember was kind enough to let me possess her for the meetings. She's smaller than me by... quite a lot."
Greene thought she understood. Fiamma could make her children Listen to her. She instantly liked the dragon.
The proceedings continued, and Elizabeth quickly found herself hating hating hating it! While she got her own questions in, more than she had hoped to (Being the center of attention had some benefits) ask, the answers never satisfied her. She simply could not figure out why her Blessing, which even then stewed in the corners of her mind, trying its hardest to endow children but failing, was not working on the equines. Even worse was when the ambassadors argued with each other. It would be so easy to just Bless them, make them stop arguing, stop fighting, but she couldn't. She couldn't.
Finally, as the night carried on and the majority of the ambassadors grew weary, the meeting finally adjourned.
"Well then," Celestia said, magically holding a scroll of paper before her. "I hope the following terms regarding Elizabeth Anne Greene's stay on Equus will be satisfactory. She is not obligated to follow the customs of any country she is in, such as bowing or formal addresses, but is to follow their laws. She is granted the freedom of movement in any country as if she were a citizen of said country. As per her insistence regarding her self reliance, she shall not receive any form of government financial aid."
Celestia took a breath before continuing, most of her words going right over Elizabeth's head. "She may answer questions of any country's representatives, but unless those questions are matters of national security, the countries are obliged to share them, as are any scientific advances that come about because of her presence."
"We shalt," Luna said, interjecting and giving a look towards Tearwing and Fiamma. "Mention that the notes regarding a potential cure for wing cancer derived from an analysis of her blood shalt be sent to thy respective countries upon conclusion of this event."
Tearwing and Fiamma froze. The griffon's eyes watered.
"Thank you, sister. As I was saying, for final matters, Elizabeth Greene shall have full sanctuary in any country from any other. Is everyp - everyone here in agreement with these terms as I have read them?"
"Yes."
"Indeed, we shall follow this creed."
"Full steam ahead!"
"Certainly."
"Then this meeting of the Allied Nations is adjourned. You've all been informed as to where you are staying for the night. A good night to you all." She turned to her sister. "Especially you, Luna," she said, sharing a warm nuzzle.
As the alicorns and the ambassadors began to depart, Elizabeth sat still, going over what she had learned. Which was essentially, nothing. All of this had been for nothing.
She noticed a feathered and furred body remain behind, making his way to her. The griffon pulled up a seat next to her, placing it where Tungsten Mind had been before. His eyes were still wet-wet-wet, which made Elizabeth nervous.
"Is it true?"
"What true?" she asked.
"Your blood, the cure derived from it. Is it... possibly a cure?"
"Know not. Not informed," she said. "Know not what wing cancer is."
"It's a horrible disease. It affects dragons, griffons, and pegasi. Basically, the victims get tumorous growths in their wings. They are almost impossible to treat even early on and completely impossible to treat safely. If they aren't caught in time, or the currently available treatments don't work, the lumps spread through their bodies. Often into the lungs and heart, causing death."
"Bad death," she murmured. While she understood what tumors were, she never knew they could be so harmful. After all, her Blessing induced those, yet her children had no ill effects. Though, it would make sense the tumors brought by her Blessing would be benign. "Blood is cure?"
"I don't think your blood is specifically a cure. I assume the ponies took a sample of it?" Tearwing ruffled his wings by his sides.
"Did," she rasped. "Make sure I won't make ponies sick."
"Well, they must've found something in it to let them on a path to a cure. If... if it's true..." Ambassador Tearwing locked eyes with Elizabeth Greene. "My sister died from wing cancer when I was a cub. Now, my eldest daughter has it. It's still in the early stages, but the typical chemical and magical therapy only seems to be slowing it down. I don't want to get my hopes up, but if you really have brought a cure for this scourge upon griffons, then let me be the first to say this." He slouched, losing the predatory elegance and noble posture he'd held until now. "Thank you. Thank you so, so much. My door will always be open to you."
Elizabeth smiled, and brought a hand to the griffon's cheek, feeling the smooth feathers. Perhaps it was just an issue with equines? "I intend to help much more, when the time comes," she said, Blessing the ambassador and pulling away her hand.
Tearwing nodded. "Thank you, Elizabeth. One predator to another, you're not all that bad for an alien from another planet with a creepy bucking voice. Ever feel like going on a hunt together, just send me a message." With that, the griffon turned and headed to his new guest room, unaware of the gift bestowed upon him...
Elizabeth frowned. Her Blessing was having an even harder time with the griffon. Not much harder, but it was still slower than with the equines. This worried worried worried her but she had no idea what she could do, nothing was making itself known to her!
She needed to clear her mind. There was one way of doing that that never failed.
She was stopped on her way outside by none other than the zebra ambassador. "Elizabeth Greene, please hold. There is something you must be told."
Funny funny funny way of talking. She was sure there was a word for that pattern. "That so?" she asked, tilting her head and locking green eyes with maroon.
"I can see it in you," Sokara said. "See it in your eyes. There is great hunger in you, and to give in to it would not be wise."
"Hunger," Greene said simply. How could she be hungry? She'd just had a meal.
"I do not know your goals, but take care. Such hunger may consume you, lest you beware."
She narrowed her eyes. "Not hungry."
"Perhaps not a literal sense," she admitted. "But take it in context. I have never seen such desire. You shall be wise not to let the world rouse your ire."
"You haven't seen hunger," Elizabeth said. "Until you have seen my Wayward Child." With that, she brushed past the smaller equine, heading outside to finally clear her head.
She found her way outside after quick directions from a night guard. She tensed her legs, and went sailing up in a single bound. Her foot caught on the edge of the roof, prompting Elizabeth to flip upside down and back over, her momentum carrying her far forward. She knelt down upon landing, then sprung up again. She flipped and turned, running up walls and careening over spires.
She delighted in this feeling of freedom, of the wind blowing through her hair and gravity falling away. The ground came up to her with a slam, and then rushed away just as fast. There was nothing quite like it. As she flipped and twirled, her worries faded away. She wasn't on an alien world. Her Blessing worked just fine. She had a loving family. Nothing real mattered, because up here nothing could touch her. While she may not have had her Wayward Child's ability to surge through the air or to glide like a bird, not even he could hope to ever match the sheer speed and grace with which she danced in the face of gravity.
There wasn't much she remembered from Before, but this was one of the few things she did. She remembered learning how to flip through the air, how to tuck and roll from a fall. She learned how to leap across gaps and redirect her momentum. All skills that had been amplified by several orders of magnitude thanks to her Blessing. Many of her children inherited the skills she had. All of them had it to some degree; even the most common of her family could roll. Her Strange Child was an impressive jumper, and her Wayward Child was probably the only one who could challenge her in a race, his Curse granting him agility beyond even Greene's own.
She gritted her teeth, forcing back the tide of memories. She soared through the air, flipping upside down and sideways partway through. She hit the nearest tower with her feet, still sideways, and propelled herself straight up. She latched her feet onto the wall and, in defiance of gravity, began to sprint straight up. Red and white flickers around her feet let her do so by grabbing onto the wall and keeping her from pushing herself off.
Above her, the tower balcony stretched out; if she continued like this, she'd hit her head. Tensing her legs, she leaped outward and upward at an angle and grabbed the edge of the balcony with one hand. She pulled herself up and over, flipping onto the balcony and rolling inside.
The tower's occupant, a purple unicorn, fell out of her bed with a startled whinny. In a bundle of blankets, the equine flailed about randomly for a few moments before calming down. A head poked out of the bundle, and Elizabeth frowned. Oh. That one.
"Hello, Elizabeth," Twilight Sparkle greeted. "W-What brings you here?"
"Wander," she rasped. Already with the questions. "Don't sleep." She sighed. Perhaps Fluttershy was right. There was something wrong with her Blessing, and she didn't know what! She couldn't do this on her own. She had tried and failed twice to raise her family alone, and she'd be damned to try again. As much as she hated-hated-hated the idea, she needed the scientist's help. "Need help," she admitted.
"Of course!" Twilight said, still in the process of move-thoughting her way out of the blankets. Greene noticed her eyes had bags under them. "What do you need help with?"
"Fluttershy said, help me fix Blessing. Can't figure out what's wrong!"
The unicorn was at her side instantly. "Well then we need to experiment! What is your Blessing, how does it normally operate, and what's different this time? What could have caused it? I need to make a table for this! No, a graph!" She zipped off and found her belongings, magically rummaging through them.
"Perhaps a Venn Diagram. Ooh, or maybe a line graph? Pictograph? No no, stem and leaf! What am I saying? This clearly calls for tables, not graphs." The unicorn magically pulled out a sheet of plain paper, a quill, and a sealed inkwell that she promptly opened. The unicorn, completely forgetting she was supposed to be asleep, flopped onto her sheet-less bed, dipping the quill in ink. "Alright, so. Column one. What does your Blessing normally do?"
"Grows inside, gains power. Painful transition. Then... happy. Strong."
Scribbling quill. "Um, I'm afraid that's not much to go on. Can you give me any more details? Like, can you make it do other things? How the recipient feels?"
"Warm touch, spreads through veins. Transition, then strengthened." Greene flexed her hands, and willed strands of fire and frost to coil around them. "Make them strong. Make them fast. So happy, so large."
"I... see. Column two. How do you spread this 'Blessing' of yours?"
"Touch," she said. "Spreads itself through air and touch. Same here, but not spreading itself." Greene pouted. "Can't help others."
"So, what races did you Bless on your home world? I mean, I know humans were the only sentient ones, but did you Bless animals?"
"No," she said. "Never needed my help." And that was true. Animals were, generally, simply too stupid to have worries about their lives. They didn't think, they just... did. Though that might be different on this world. After all, talking equines.
"I see. Column three, how has your 'Blessing' differed on this world?"
"Doesn't spread itself. Doesn't give strength, or speed, or joy. Just suffering," she murmured, looking down at her hands as they fiddled with the strap around her waist. "Sits in bodies. Not doing much."
Twilight stopped scribbling. "I see. Now that we have the differences, we need to go over what might've changed your Blessing to be ineffectual."
"Magic in air?" Greene half asked, half suggested. "Turbulence in arrival. Broken by my son's Curse. All I imagine."
"Hmm. If you truly come from a world with no magic, then I can see how Equus's magical field can interfere with your abilities. If that's the case, then you'll simply have to wait for your body to adjust to the magic. Nopony knows anything about how you arrived, however if it's just being shaken up by it then that too should pass. But whatever this 'Curse' that your son gave you is, well, if we can't analyze it directly there's not much we can do. We can't exactly compare how you were before and after, you see." She shrugged. "Sorry, but our hooves are tied here."
Greene sighed. "Wait or doomed." She tightened her fists. "Not good, not good! Need to solve it!"
"Elizabeth," Twilight said soothingly. Not as soothingly as Fluttershy though. She had an... aura around her that Greene quite liked. "You have been in Equestria for all of two days. You're not going to solve all your problems in that span of time. I'm a terrible hypocrite for saying this, but don't worry about it, just relax. If we can, we'll help you. It wouldn't be right not to help you, alien or not."
The unicorn sighed. "I'm really sorry, but without more information there's really nothing I can do to help you." Twilight's eyes shifted to the right, then back to the left. Elizabeth glanced in those directions as well. There was nothing there, so why did she look?
She growled. "You tried." She turned around and headed back to the tower's opening.
"Hold on," the equine said behind her.
She whirled around. "Yes?"
"How did you even get up here?"
"Jump, run up the wall," she replied simply. She continued, easily stepping off the edge to the sound of Twilight's sputtering. Wind whistled through her hair as she fell weightlessly, before slamming into the castle roof and continuing.
Nobody could help her. She just had to wait, and that tore at her! The longer she waited to fix her Blessing, the more of the equines would die of some cause or another and never know family! There had to be something she could do! There had to! Had to had to had to...
She looked up at the moon, leaping from point to point, swiftly making her way back to her room.
... right?
It didn't take her long to enter Home again. Fluttershy was in the same spot she had been in when Elizabeth left her, laying upon the bed after she had retracted her warmth from it. She had nestled beneath the covers, a peaceful smile on her face. Greene sat next to her, drawing warmth to beneath her, and gently stroked her mane.
She'd been wrong. Twilight couldn't help her. The only possibilities for her Blessing not working were either ones that she couldn't hope to change, or ones that she could only wait to be resolved. Not being able to do anything hurt her. She'd been unable to do anything for so long long long! She wanted to do something! She wanted to Bless equines and feed children and love them and tear apart any who hurt them and she wanted wanted wanted!
She let out a resigned sigh, and Fluttershy shifted in her sleep, murmuring as she turned on her side to face Elizabeth, eyes still closed and twitching lightly under their lids. Greene pondered that curiously. She didn't know when she'd last slept. That was literal; she'd gone through the Time for Waiting without sleeping once, since she didn't exactly need it. The thought of being unconscious, of being defenseless, displeased her on a very primal level. Though the idea of escaping her worries for even a few hours...
The equine turned again, presenting Greene with the back of her head.
No, she couldn't go to sleep. She needed all her brainpower. There had to be something Twilight Sparkle overlooked. She was a mere equine, and she was the first Evolved. If anyone knew her Blessing inside and out, if anyone could figure out what was wrong, it would be her.
She closed her eyes and focused. She could sense her Blessing out there. There was one node of it in what she assumed was the griffon ambassador, a spot of warmth in a sea of cold, struggling to grow outwards but unable to. There were the seeds in the equines, some dozen or so with the Blessing coursing through their veins and flesh. But their bodies, like that of the griffon ambassador, fought the Blessing to a stalemate.
Why?
She'd never experienced a person fighting her Blessing. The Similars accepted it readily, knowing deep down it was for the best to burn away their corrupt personalities. Luna simply annihilated it, but that was just pure magic. These others, though... there was no magic at work.
Elizabeth opened her eyes back up. The world was awash in a sea of red, what little noise there was diluted. Her warmth pulsed a gentle yellow, and she herself burned bright white. She could see, through the walls, yellow spots where there were those she had Blessed, and as if they were right next to her, she could make out their shapes.
She noticed the 'earth ponies' were fighting her Blessing with far greater strength than the pegasi and unicorns she'd touched. All were at stalemate, yet the earth ponies didn't let her Blessing spread as far as the others. Was it conscious? No, they had no knowledge of what she'd done. So it had to be their bodies. Why? Why would they fight off her Blessing? It was nothing harmful; it was to make them stronger and all around better than ever before!
She focused on one unicorn, urging the Blessing within him - she thought it was a male, she couldn't really tell - to grow and propagate. It squirmed about inside his body faster, yet nothing changed. Her command over her Blessing was as strong as ever, yet it seemed the bodies of the equines were just as strong.
The equines.
That was it. She had to look at the variables, and see what changed, and despite that being scientist thinking it made sense.
She had not changed, she'd be able to feel that. Her Blessing had not changed. Her control over it had not changed. The only things that had changed were her location (And more importantly, the magic that came with it) and those she was Blessing.
But she wasn't destined to get far with that train of thought because suddenly things were going bad bad bad! Her Blessings began to fall back. The griffon, the equines, their bodies began to fight off her Blessing, driving it out from them, the yellow spots dimming. She panicked. No. No! What are they doing?! Stop! She focused her will on them, fighting with all her mental might to keep them Blessed. Their bodies ceased driving her gift to oblivion, but she made no actual headway.
Her focus slipped for a moment to wonder what had changed, had their bodies acclim... acclim... gotten strong enough? Then she was back to fighting, because with just that momentary lapse of concentration her Blessing began to vanish again.
It was to be a long, busy night.
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Awesome.
Intresting.
So the ponies, if not all species on Equs, are totally immune to her Blessing, needing only a period of sickness before it passes. And of course, Greene doesn't have the first clue about biology, so she has no idea how things really work, and doesn't know that she has to adapt to adapt the Blessing to work on other species. Well played sir, well played.
Nice.
Best Prototype Crossover ever
Doesn't Elizibeth at least need to consume one pony so she can get there DNA and learn how to infect them I think she needs to evolve like all great viruses do!
3216148
Elizabeth cannot consume. That ability is exclusive to Zeus.
At least I'm hoping so. I'm hoping this story follows the cannon of the first game and completely disregards that horrible sequel.
appears that there was a downvote troll. Complimentary upvotes for all
Good. Vey good. Wond... wond... great even. Not sure if Elizabeth bad or good. Story written well. Dialogue interesting. Very intelligent. New point of view is good. Allowing to understand Elizabeth better.