Is it because we have fingers like theirs?

by lazerbear7

Miscommunications

Emily wasn’t sure which part of the situation to be more confused by. There was a lot to choose from: the star-filled mane that waved in some undetectable wind, the long horn that protruded from the thing’s skull, its large eyes that glared back with a critical edge, or the fact that it had some sort of ornately crafted design on a crescent moon hanging around its neck.

She decided to focus on its eyes, wrapping her fingers around the grip of her laser pistol and starting to slide it from its holster. Her titan armor made subtly difficult, but the horses didn’t seem to notice anyways.

The thing stood at about three fourths of her height, so it had to look up at her. She got the feeling that it wasn’t used to doing that. The two started at each other for a few heavy moments, waiting for the other to do something, anything.

Emily turned her head back, keeping her eyes locked with the horse as she spoke.

“Kato, do you have any idea what’s going on? Think you could mind control this one?”

It was a few seconds more before Kato responded, and when he did, he didn’t sound entirely comfortable.

“Probably not. These new ones are strong. They’re leaders, maybe? They’re strong enough to be. Maybe it’s trying to establish dominance?”

Emily shrugged, muttering under her breath, “Pretty passive way to do it…”

The horse turned slightly to talk to the larger white one that had come behind it. Their words were still total gibberish, but the emotions that played across their faces were easy enough to read. Both were tense, nervous, but the white one was more concerned than the one with the moon. Neither of them were too sure about anything, obviously, and both were fairly tense. She got the impression they were trying to appear impressive in some way, almost regal.

How a horse managed to pull off a regal look, she wasn’t entirely sure, but it somehow managed. Like it fully expected her cooperation, it put a hoof out to her, extended the same way one would offer a handshake. Emily hesitated for a moment, then tentatively reached out and took the hoof in her hand, shaking gently. Her grip on her laser pistol tightened.

She felt the pony horse return the gesture, and let her grip fade. The horse said a few more words, this time directly at her, but it still sounded like a garbled mockery of any real language.

She didn’t know whether or not to speak, so she shrugged and said, “Sorry, didn’t get that one either.”

It opened its mouth, and was about to say something else when movement behind her made Amber turn around. Sam had snapped out of his half-conscious stupor, and was reaching for his plasma rifle. It hadn’t been placed back in its holster, luckily enough, but he still had his sidearm. Kato was already working to calm him down, shouting his name and holding him down.

“Sam, no! Stop! Its fine, we’re not in danger! These aren’t aliens! Calm down!”

His efforts didn’t seem to be yielding much, Sam was fighting tooth and nail to get free. He didn’t know how delicate the situation potentially was, and Emily needed him to calm down now. It only took a brief moment for her to think of what would snap her out of a panic like that.

“Soldier, at ease!”

Shouting didn’t feel right to her, but given the situation, she knew she could get past that. Sam froze mid-struggle, his eyes unfocused as they searched for the source of the order. Kato was quick to snatch the gun out of his hands and step away, diffusing the situation further.

Emily glanced back at the horses out of the corners of her eyes before turning back to Sam, positioning herself between him and the creatures so he couldn’t see them.

“Freeman, you’re injured, and things are a little hectic right now. I’m going to need you to lay there and not do anything, alright?”

Using his last name made her feel like she had more authority over him. She supposed she was lucky to remember it at all, but that wasn’t one of her concerns at the moment.

He stared back at her blankly for a few moments before blinking, flinching, and putting a hand to his head. Emily could relate to the feeling, her head was pounding too. They were both likely concussed, but treating it would have to wait. He sat back in the bed, leaning against the wall behind it so he could see what was going on.

Emily turned back to the creatures, not sure of how she would be received now. Hopefully the struggle hadn’t given a negative impression.

The darker of the two larger horses had taken a few steps back, giving some space to the fighting humans. its eyes had tracked the laser pistol as it changed hands, and it now glared warily at Kato. Emily managed to get its attention again, stepping closer and waving a hand dismissively.

“Okay, that’s better. Now, what the hell…”

It had turned back to the others of its kind, having what looked like a rather heated exchange. Emily read what she could from their faces, but mostly had no clue what was going on. Frequent questions to the green unicorn made her think they were asking about the mind-control incident. If there was no other option, Emily supposed that it would be an acceptable way to solve the issue. It wasn’t elegant or pleasant for either party, but it was functional.

She glanced back again, and asked, “Hey, Kato, think you could translate for us again? Looks like that’s going to be our only real option here.”

He nodded, and she turned to face the horses again.

---

Lyra felt Twilight take another small step back as the Princesses argued.

“It’s a risk we can’t take!”

“It is our only option! We cannot simply stand here and stare at each other like fools! She has agreed to let them speak through her again!”

It was true, she had said that. She was starting to regret in now, though. Seeing the wedge this drew between the two sisters was startling.

Princess Celestia looked back over to Lyra, a cautious look in her eyes, and Lyra nodded.

“I’m fine with it, really! I’m willing to take the risk.”

Celestia’s gaze moved from Lyra to Princess Luna, then to Twilight, who had, for the most part, refrained from joining the discussion. None looked like they considered the humans to be quite as much of a threat as she did. She sighed, and stepped back.

“Very well. I’m only concerned about her safety, Luna. Ponies have already been hurt because of their arrival.”

Her sister’s reply came confident and strong.

“I will not let any harm come to her.”

With that, Lyra stepped forward, feeling unpleasantly meek now that the room was full of humans and alicorns. Princess Luna walked beside her, making the few steps over to the humans feel much longer than they were. When they stood facing each other again, Lyra couldn’t help but look past the woman at the man behind her on the ben. He stared back at her, eyes wide. She couldn’t quite make out his facial expression, but moments ago he’d pulled a weapon on them. The ponies had agreed that he was probably just confused, but Lyra had to admit, she would feel much better if they had any way to be even remotely sure about that.

The humans looked at them silently for a few moments before the leader turned to talk with the one who had used its magic on her. She watched carefully, trying to see every little facial movement and expression. It was a lot to take in, and before she could even get a sense of the subtleties, they were done.

The darker of the two still standing stepped forwards, and all eyes in the room turned to the ball of dark purple magic that formed in the man’s fingers. Lyra glanced up at Princess Luna again, curious to see her reaction, and was surprised to find that she looked utterly dumbfounded.

The next thing Lyra was aware of was the purple tendrils snaking around her head, and the feeling of something drilling into her brian.

---

Princess Luna watched on in a mixture of grim fascination and horror. What was happening could be considered magic, she supposed, by some loose definition of the word, but this was certainly no spell. The human’s eyes were ablaze with an imposing purple glow; the kind that tended to indicate dark magic. She’d considered herself familiar enough with human behavior and abilities, but she never could have expected this.

The pony, Lyra Heartstrings, as she had been told, made a constricted attempt to speak before going as rigid as a board, eyes locking with the human’s. Over the course of a second, Luna watched Lyra’s will buckle and fade under the sheer weight of the human’s consciousness.

When she turned back to the Princess, her eyes were glowing with the same shade of as the human’s

When she opened her mouth her speech was stilted awkwardly and delivered in a flat, dead tone.

“We don’t want battle. The others do. They ran. Did you find?”

Luna stared back for several moments before replying, “Can you… understand us?”

Lyra nodded, and Luna noted that the human echoed the motion slightly. She didn’t know how much they could understand, but she did her best to answer their question.

“No, we need to learn more about the situation before we do anything drastic like pursuing them. We don’t want battle either, I assure you. If there is a peaceful way to settle this, we will find it.”

The humans exchanged a few short, barking words before Lyra spoke again.

“Where are we? Why are we here?”

This was not a question either sister had anticipated. They’d both expected the humans to know something about their arrival. The letter they had received was foggy at best on how they ended up in Ponyville, the best detail they had was that some kind of craft crashed, and that humans weren’t the only creatures that had come from the thing. Luna looked forward to hearing more about them, but now was not the time.

In spite of her normally clear and regal poise, she hesitated. Her eyes shifted from the human to Lyra as she thought of how to answer, then back once she had at something to say.

“We don’t know. It is a mystery to us as well, unfortunately.”

Lyra flinched, and the human behind her flinched as well.

“Who are you? Leaders?”

This question was much easier to answer, and Luna was glad for that.

“We are. I am Princess Luna, and this is my sister, Princess Celestia.” She indicated Celestia by nodding in her direction, keeping her eyes on the humans. “And I believe you have already met Princess Twilight Sparkle.” She motioned to Twilight just as she had Celestia, then said,

“Now, I believe it would be fit for you to introduce yourselves as well.”

Lyra flinched again, this time more severely, and the human did the same. Keeping control over the pony seemed to be putting a fair amount of stress on him. Luna couldn’t help but wonder what the full extent of their magic power was. Any unicorn would be envious of the raw power being used now.

Lyra turned, pointing a hoof blankly at the woman who had tried to communicate before, saying, “Emily, in command.” She turned to point at the man controlling her. “Kato, field s-“

Lyra gave a sudden jerk, and stumbled off to the side. Luna was quick to extend a wing and bring her close, readying herself to cast a spell if necessary.

The tendrils of power between the pony and the human broke apart, disintegrating as the human abruptly cut off its connection. The halo that had swirled around Lyra’s head disappeared, and she swayed unsteadily under Luna’s wing for a few moments before coming to and shaking her head.

“Augh, that’s so weird!”

Luna cocked her head and looked down at her, looking her over carefully for any signs of damage or having been somehow altered by the experience. There were no obvious signs of malicious magic, if possessing a pony could be considered benign, and she seemed to be behaving the same way she was before.

As Luna stared at her, Lyra started to become increasingly uncomfortable, beginning to edge her way out from under the Princess’s wing.

“So, that was useful, right? I mean, I guess we didn’t really learn much, but still, introductions count.”

Luna glanced back to her sister, interested to see what she would have to say.

Celestia replied, “Yes, I think that was very useful. We know that they are confused, and need help. Luna, did he cut the spell off intentionally, or was it an accident?”

Before she could respond, Lyra spouted excitedly, “No, he just can’t keep something like that up for very long…”

Her voice trailed off and her color seemed to fade as she realized that she’d interrupted royalty. Neither of the Princesses were upset or annoyed, like she had thought they might. Instead, they seemed to take interest in what she’d said.

“How do you know that? Did he communicate something to you specifically somehow?”

She shook her head, happy to tell them what little she felt she’d managed to glean from the mind-to-mind encounters.

“It’s not really like I can get any good sense of what’s going on in his head, it’s more like just getting impressions. And not clear ones, either. I

mean, it’s like he’s pushing my thoughts out of my head, so some of his leak through, I guess.”

The two elder Princesses looked at each other, then started to talk as though they didn’t have an audience.

“Do you think one of us could take more information away from this than her?”

“Maybe, but what if she was chosen for a reason? There could be some other factor that makes her more appropriate.”

Again, both turned to Lyra, but it was Twilight who spoke up now.

“She isn’t an alicorn.”

Celestia and Luna looked back at her, surprised, before realizing that she was right.

“Back in that craft thing, it was just me and Lyra. It would make sense that if they don’t want to scare us, they wouldn’t start possessing ponies out in front of a crowd, right? So maybe they chose Lyra to possess instead of me because she isn’t an alicorn, and something about that makes it easier.”

Luna turned to Celestia again, and said, “I must wonder how large the difference is, then. We can’t know how a human’s magical abilities compare to our own with only this to base it on.” She looked over to Lyra. “Do you think they could use other powers? Were you able to discern that much?”

Lyra could only shrug.

“I don’t know. He has a lot of power, but I don’t think he has much control over it. Do you think he has other abilities?”

She looked over to Twilight questioningly, who gave the other humans a wary eye.

“I don’t know. Right now, it seems like a better question to ask if they can all do it, or if it’s just him. We’ve only seen him do it, and the others haven’t shown any sign of being able to either.”

There was silence as the question was considered. If they could, why hide it? Luna considered their position. If she were one of them, she would hide her strength too.

If there was a way to get the same experience Lyra had, maybe she could divine more from it. She was, after all, experienced with dreams and the workings of the mind in ways that none could compare to, not even her sister. The problem would be getting the humans to understand what she wanted.

“Perhaps I would be able to interpret better.” Lyra, Celestia, and Twilight all looked at her as she spoke. “It could be similar to dreaming. If it is, I should be able to communicate with him without much trouble.”

Celestia was the first to speak up, but Luna already knew what she was going to say.

“Celestia-“ she interrupted “-I know it’s risky, but I have absolute faith that you and Princess Twilight will do whatever is necessary to keep our people safe.”

She didn’t mean to do it, but her allusion to her transformation into Nightmare Moon obviously struck a nerve in Celestia. A pained expression quickly flashed across her sister’s face, but was quickly concealed.

She turned back to the humans, finding that all three were watching them intently, their attention almost totally undivided. The man who had used magic was looking slightly more fatigued than before, but human expressions were hard for Equestrians to read, even for her.

She’d never thought she would be this close to a human again. Not since the last time.

She cleared her head of the rather sordid memories, making a mental note to discuss them with Celestia later. She was sure she had made the connection as well. If she was going to really communicate with them, she needed a clear head, to focus on the moment, not dwell on the past.

They stared at her, and she stared back before stepping forward and bowing her head slightly. Then she turned and pointed a hoof at Lyra, before placing it on herself, hoping to indicate that they should do the same to her as they had to Lyra. They started to talk among

themselves, quick and sharp words flowing faster than she could ever hope to follow.

---

“The hell is it doing now?”

Sam’s question surmised the thoughts of his squad mates quite nicely, and Emily responded with a shrug.

“No clue. It’s looking at Kato, so maybe something to do with the mind control? Why would it do that, though? It’s one of their leaders, right?”

She looked over to Kato, who nodded.

“That’s what it said. I don’t think I could though, it has much more resistance than the other one.”

Emily ran her fingers through her hair, letting out a deep breath. She was in charge, she didn’t need to be reminded. If they stood here and did nothing, they couldn’t get any farther. They’d probably never get home, the aliens would probably start harvesting the ponies for whatever it was they did with them, and…

“Do it.”

She thought she felt her heart skip a beat when she said it, and she watched Kato carefully for any sign of disapproval. She wasn’t the best at reading body language, but her familiarity with Kato made him easier to understand. He didn’t seem opposed to the idea, simply turning to the Princess, whose name he hadn’t been able to catch, and focusing his mind.

He muttered a few incomprehensible words to himself as his eyes started to glow and the area around him seemed to darken. Emily noticed Sam averting his eyes and fidgeting uncomfortably on the bed. It took a second to put the two together, but once she did, she wasn’t surprised. Not everyone was as at peace with psychics as she was. She was sure it wouldn’t influence his cooperation at all, not when they were stranded in a bizarre world filled with psychic ponies.

Kato put a hand out towards the Princess, and dark tendrils extended out towards its head. It stared at Kato whole this happened, as if it were ensuring he did what he was supposed to, until the psychic power started to circle her head.

The princess’s body tensed, and her eyes slammed shut. Emily heard a low grunt escape her body as she seemed to fight Kato’s control.

Muscles spasmed at random, and her body hunched closer to the floor in a way that looked unpleasantly awkward for something that walked on four legs. Her mouth hung open in a mute scream, and Emily could see the ponies behind her starting to get concerned. The purple one made to move closer, but the white one stopped her with a wing, shaking her head with a sympathetic expression. They wanted to see what would happen, Emily guessed. She couldn’t deny that she was in the same boat.

She could tell that Kato wouldn’t be able to wrest control of the Princess. He was taking too long. She was made of sterner stuff than the unicorn, just as Kato had said. Kato must have realized this as well, because a second later he had let the power die, lowering his hand and shaking his head.

The Princess, however, stayed hunched, shaking like a leaf in the wind. Emily could see that whatever had just happened hadn’t hit her the way she’d expected.

The other ponies started to move closer, but before they could, the Princess’s horn glowed with a dark blue light, and bright flash of light blinded Emily before what felt like a rush of water threw her into the wall. She could hear panicked garbles from the ponies, and was just able to make out Kato’s voice from somewhere to her left.

“What’s going on?”

She blinked quickly, moving her body as best she could against the current. Her powered armor made it easier, but she could feel her muscles straining as much as was possible. As her vision started to return, she could see the bleary outline of the Princess, who was slowly approaching with gritting teeth and a bright glow still wrapped around its horn.

There wasn’t time to respond to Kato, her mind was too busy running through her options. Without noticing it, her arm went over her shoulder and snagged the grip of her alloy cannon, dragging back around where her other arm could find a comfortable grip.

Perhaps trying to mind control one of the leaders was a mistake. She certainly hadn’t indicated that while Kato had been getting ready, though. She didn’t know what else the signals it gave could possibly have meant. Regardless, now it seemed like it was trying to kill them, and she had to defend her squad. She could feel the bone in her leg crack again, but the adrenaline pounding in her brain made it easy to ignore. She leaned into the current, putting every effort into advancing forward. What would have been an all-out sprint moved her at the speed of a light jog. The room wasn’t large though, and her gun was more than accurate enough to do the trick.

She wasn’t the only one moving, she noticed as her eyes continued to recover. The other ponies were running towards the Princess, with looks of great concern. They yelled loudly, but the Princess didn’t seem to react.

Emily’s heels pressed down on the floor as she rooted herself in place, practically within arm’s reach of the pony. There wasn’t a chance in hell she could miss at this distance, even half blind and being pushed. An unarmored target against superheated plasma. Chances of successful diplomacy seemed to be plummeting by the second.

Emily could feel every eye focus on her, including her target’s. The princess’s body seemed to tense again, and she froze like she was caught in the headlights of a truck. Emily’s eyes locked with hers, and she became aware of a glowing aura around her body that mirrored the glow around the pony’s horn.

Her finger twitched on the trigger, and she felt the mechanisms in the gun start to vibrate as it made ready to spit a very unpleasant death.

The princess remained frozen, and Emily felt the pushing against her body stop as the glow around the pony’s horn faded. No one moved. No one spoke. No one so much as breathed as they watched Emily hold the Princess at gunpoint.

Her mind raced through what was happening before finally reaching a conclusion as to what the best thing to do would be.

---

Luna’s gaze was transfixed on the harsh green glow that dwelt ominously at the back of the long tube. She didn’t know what it was, but it could hurt her. Very badly.

When the weapon was lifted away, she felt like collapsing. Why had she done that? If she hadn’t been able to bring herself out of her panic, she didn’t want to think about what could have happened. She would not have taken it well, Celestia would not have taken it well, and Twilight would not have taken it well. Equestria would not have taken it well.

She shook her head. She knew what Celestia would say. It wasn’t her fault. Maybe that was true. All she knew was that she never wanted to feel anything like that again. The sensation of something else’s thoughts, working their way into her brain and trying to control her, it was all too familiar. She’d been through it all before, and she had sworn never to let it happen again. She was arrogant to think that a humans mind would be manageable.

The human hadn’t lost himself, though. He emerged fine. It was Lune, one of the strongest ponies in Equestria, who found herself shaken to the very core. He had left images in his wake, memories of what she could only assume were the “others” he had tried to warn them about. Cities, sprawls bigger than anything Equestria had ever seen, burning as streets crawled with creatures large and small, striking down innocents without discretion. The human didn’t send any words with this, but she understood. This was what they brought, and what the humans fought against.

She felt Celestia’s wing over her back, and heard her voice, but it sounded too far away to understand. Her mind was still too scrambled to understand. She kept sorting through the chaos.

Adding to the information she had to process, the woman had been able to fight her telekinesis more than any living thing had before. The other two hadn’t been able to resist; why was she able to?

Celestia nuzzled her neck, and she jumped, her attention coming back to the room around her.

“What? Oh, I’m… fine.”

She averted her gaze, then turned it immediately back when she found herself slipping away again. The concern on her sister’s face was clear, and neither one of them needed to say anything to know that diplomacy was done for the day.

Author's Note:

Comments and criticisms are always greatly appreciated.

Comments

[Random guy]

Alloy canons glow white, just a very minor detail.

[michaelb958]

This looks interesting. Like, really interesting. I got into XCOM via ponies (thank Stardust), and this is looking like the kind of thing I like reading (I have a bit of a soft spot for language-barrier!HiE).

Resorting straight to mind control (earlier chapter) seems a bit risky, but it's not like anyone had any better options... Nice justification for not using instant-language spells, by the way.

She’d never thought she would be this close to a human again. Not since the last time.

Dun dun duuuuuun

[Cross Lament]

Welp, you've got me hooked.

[Whiskey-Foxtrot 929]

After going through this...

Oi - where the bloody hell are you? XD

I just started reading this, and now I'm hooked. Can't leave us all on this note, right? :P

I know life can get busy (I'm a semi retired author myself), but if you need any help and are still here, I'm sure there's folks willing to help if you want/need it. If you're still busy though, that's understandable. I just hope you come back to this someday.