Equestria Girls: Secrets Beyond the Stars

by GoldenGoomba900

Let's Get Down to Business

The girls began their training, working as diligently as one could in such a location. The exceptions were Rainbow and Pinkie. Rainbow's powers hadn't seemed to manifest, while Pinkie's mind control powers were unlikely to be improved. As such, the two were left to spy on the mysterious glowing object in the middle of the woods, and to report back by Pinkie's cell if anything happened.

"Right, Rarity, Fluttershy, Sunset, put your masks on, and we can see who gets paired up with who." Twilight said, tossing them their respective masks, setting the green one aside.

"Wait, shouldn't we get into costume first?" Twilight rolled her eyes, letting her run off and get dressed. She drug the other two along as Twilight turned to Applejack.

"Alright, Applejack, put on the mask and tell me how you feel." She sat down and pulled out a notepad and pencil, Applejack putting on her mask and beginning.

"I feel... the same, I guess."

"Alright, this first test is going be about what else you can produce from your body."

"I really hope it's just arms." Applejack mumbled.

"Here, hold this book." She tossed a book to Applejack, who caught it with ease.

"Excellent! Now catch this!" She tossed an apple, which was also caught.

"One more, catch this." She tossed a branch from the ground. In a split second, Applejack had captured it with a third arm, one that had seemed to come from nowhere, even with Twilight's full attention she was unable to determine when the arm had sprouted.

"Amazing!" She wrote down in her book approached Applejack, gently poking the third arm with her pencil. Applejack pulled it away slightly, reacting as if it had always been there. "Now, take off the mask." Nodding, the country girl removed the gas-mask, the third arm vanishing the moment the last inch of rubber lost contact with her skin. "And on again, I have a few other tests."

The others returned in their garb, Applejack facing Twilight on her left.

"Oh, Applejack!" Rarity greets as she approached, "still testing the mask I se-eee-eee-EEEE" She shouted as Applejack turned to reveal her power had given her the ability to grow a second head. Applejack took off the mask before Rarity could faint, the second head vanishing instantly.

"...Now, didn't I tell you that a second head wouldn't be all that useful?" Applejack asked, Twilight shaking her head.

"Why don't you take a break? We can continue training a bit later." The scientist chuckling. "Fluttershy, we're going alphabetically, so you're next."

"Uh, OK... are you sure I won't have something-?"

"You'll be fine, Fluttershy. We're here for you. If anything goes wrong we can just take off the mask."

"Alright..." She takes a deep breath and puts on the mask, blinking as she realized she didn't feel different.

"Well?" Twilight asked, taking out her pen and pad. Fluttershy shrugged in response.

"Hm... another dud. Well, I suppose this is to be expected, it's not an exact science. Oh, I just remembered, do we have anything for lunch?"

"WELL, I BROUGHT- IS SOMETHING WRONG?" Fluttershy's obnoxiously loud voice caused all the group to clutch their ears, curling up into balls and trying to motion for her to stop. The world seemed to shake, birds flew from the trees, and Spike began howling before Sunset Shimmer could motion for her to remove the mask.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I do something wrong?"

"Are my ears bleeding?!" Applejack asked, the others shaking their heads.

"It's just tinnitus! It should wear off in a few minutes!" Twilight explained.

"What!?" Shouted the others.

---

Across the forest, in the depths of the ship, Flash blinked and looked around as Inapan approached. "Something the matter, honey?"

"I thought I heard something." He answered, shaking his head.

"Well, I hope it was nothing serious. I'm going out to investigate how your fellow earthlings are doing."

"Uh, actually, I've been thinking..." Princess turned to look at him, curious.

"Yes, about what?"

"Well, maybe I could come with you this time, you know, see the world one last time before we... blast off? Maybe meet with some of my friends, visit the rest of my family?"

"Oh Flash..." She said in a calm, almost motherly voice, hugging him. "Of course you can't. We're your family now. Don't you like us? We're so, so much better than your human friends, aren't we?" Flash opened his mouth to answer but she covered it. "Ssh... If you really are feeling lonely, I know just the thing." She clapped her hands and a robot showed up. "You, robot. You work for Flash now." The robot gave a positive beep.

"This wasn't exactly what I meant."

"Give him a try honey, if you don't like it we can just destroy it."

"Thank you?"

"If you still feel lonely when I come home, we can play some games. Just me and you, and whomever else you want!" She grabbed him and gave him a deep, passionate kiss before leaving, happier than ever.

Inapan approached a small panel, leaning over and letting it scan her eye. The door opened, revealing a large, oval-shaped vat with a large, blinking blue button, similar to the one Twilight and friends had discovered in the woods. Pressing the button three times, the foul-smelling slime sunk into the bottom of the device. Turning the button and slamming it violently, the door to the tube opened, allowing her to enter it. With a zap, Princess vanished into the ether... temporarily.

Across the forest she flashed into existence in the green goop of the second tube, letting it slowly drain as she waited patiently. The polyester let the slime glide off her body as the door finally opened.

"This process seems to take longer every time..." She muttered, stepping out from behind a bizarre oak tree, unaware Pinkie and Rainbow Dash were watching from the shadows. Inapan left while the two girls approached the machine, trying to think.

Rainbow stared at the button, holding her nose to try and ignore the obnoxious smelling green slime as it filled the tube up once more. It was some kind of teleporter, that was clear, but how to work it was another issue altogether, but then again, it was only one button. How hard could it possibly be?

"Pinkie you man the controls, I'm going in." Rainbow approached the tube, pinkie approaching the button. She pressed it and the tube began to empty, the door opening to let Rainbow in. But after that? Nothing. "Hm... uh, try hitting it again?" Rainbow suggested. Doing so, the door closed behind her, but still nothing happened.

"Maybe we should wait until she comes back and watch how she does it?"

"It's only one button, Pinkie. It's not like there needs to be a manual. Hit it again, maybe it's just getting ready." Pinkie gently hits the button and Rainbow is sprayed in the face with the green slime. "Pinkie!"

"What?"

"Nevermind!" Rainbow puts on her mask, in case she gets sprayed again. "Just see if there's any other switches or buttons on it."

Pinkie does so, her hand brushing the button to the left slightly, the machine starting to whir. "Oh, it's doing something!" She returned to the panel and hit the button again.

With a flash of orange light Rainbow was gone... or so it seemed. "Pinkie!" came a tiny, tiny voice from the bottom of the machine. "Press the button again!" Blinking, Pinkie approached the glass tube and looked down.

"Oh my GOSH Dashie, you're so teeny tiny! It's like I have my own little doll!"

"I don't WANT to be a doll! Hit the button again, turn me back to normal!" Rainbow shouted, Pinkie heading to the control panel and pressing the button, slightly harder this time. In a grey flash, Rainbow had returned to normal size but had now gained a few things. The centaur Dash glared at Pinkie she coughed.

"Well, uh, let's try this again." This repeated for quite a while. Rainbow the giant, Rainbow the Griffon, Rainbow the Elder, Rainbow the pegasus...

---

Thankfully, the main group's ringing in their ears had worn off, leaving Twilight to return to her studies.

"Rarity, you're up." Twilight said, handing the fashionista her mask. "Now, hopefully," she turned to grab her notebook and pencil "this one goes without AUGH!" Twilight returned facing forward to see herself standing in Rarity's place. "Well, I guess that answers that."

"Whatever are you talking about?" She asked, oblivious. "Oh dear, my suit's changed!" She said, noticing it. Taking off the gloves and seeing the purple skin underneath it all began becoming clear. "Oh. I suppose that makes more sense." She admitted, taking off the mask and returning to normal. "A pity, I was hoping more people would see my costume."

"Now, going alphabetically, we have Sunset Shimmer."

"Wait," Rarity interjected. "Wouldn't Spike be next? I mean, you did make the green mask for him, didn't you?" Spike looked up from the tennis ball he'd been gnawing on, looking at Twilight.

"Uh, well, thing is that the mask uh..." Twilight stuttered, leaning down to pet Spike.

"Yeah, it looks just like me! Come on, lemme do it!" The purple dog sat down and closed his eyes, waiting for the mask.

"I-It's just a bit dangerous, Spike. We've had powers, we know how to at least kind of control ourselves but you..." The dog gave her a saddened, doggy look that only small cute things knew how to pull off. "D-don't give me that look Spike. I'm not doing this to be mean, we know how it reacts on the human body but we can't just, and I don't think I could forgive myself if something bad happened!" Spike looked at the ground, moping. "Come on Spike. I'm just doing this because I don't want you to get hurt." He humphed and looked away, unhappily. A pregnant pause followed as the group thought of a way to move on. "Sunset Shimmer, could you?"

"Oh, right sorry." She put on the mask. "It's just, you never said that stuff to me when I wanted to put on the mask."

---

Inapan approached the city, smiling smugly as she entered the shopping district. People worked diligently, stopping only temporarily to give her unhappy glares. She shook her head and approached a small burger stand, where Tested looked at her notes on a pad. Looking up and seeing her sister, she shrunk it to the size of a pellet and pocketed it.

"Oh, hello sister." she greeted.

"Sister!" Inapan said, worried. "Is something the matter? You usually don't cease multitasking unless something is the matter."

"It's the earthlings. They've found neither hide nor hair of the humans we want."

"...Pfft, no matter. We just have Grunt take the statue and experiment on that."

"It's not that easy. While the portal is the source, the flow has been altered. By my math those humans would have needed to be exposed to the energy for Undu-Lopto-Aquan of their human years in order to build up that amount flowing through them. They're filtering the energy."

"So right now our most useful source for study is-"

"The half-breeds, yes. Unfortunately, the rest of the earthlings have lost them."

"Don't send an insect for a robot's job then. I'll send them out into the city, to scavenge them... or their remains."

"And the other humans? Should we let them free?" Tested asked, the food stand owner sheepishly giving them some free burgers, hoping to sway their views.

"...No, but we needn't necessarily destroy them either." Inapan confessed. "It's not in my hands, sister. It's in theirs."

"That's very honorable of you sister." Tested said, looking over the burgers and dissecting one of them with plastic cutlery.

"And if they do, on some small, significantly impossible succeed, then the planet can stay. I'm not sure I'd keep on the rest of their kind though." She said, picking up the food and hesitantly taking a bite. "Ah!" She tossed the burger on the ground and began firing her blaster at it.

"These creatures aren't even alive." Tested announced.

"These humans really ARE a primitive race."