Chapter 3: Twilight's Library
Twilight slammed her muzzle into the fourth book she had checked - G.R.R Minotaurin’s Looking Into The Ecosystem Of Greater Griffonia - and groaned in frustration as Strange Form smiled sheepishly, more to himself, really, than to Twilight. Twilight spared him a glance, eyes filled with a brightly burning fire of intelligence that hungered for the knowledge of whatever Strange Form was. She had checked A.K Yearling’s Exotic Creatures of Equus, Charles Haywin’s The Beauty of Natural Evolution - which, yes, was actually a detailed look at the more complicated and rare creatures of Equus and how they had evolved, and much less a paper on evolution itself - Iron Redhoof’s Desert Animals of Equus, and the aforementioned Looking Into The Ecosystem Of Greater Griffonia.
There were, obviously, other books to check. The library may not have been the biggest one in the world, but it could fit a sizeable portion of knowledge inside, and she could definitely check a few other books on creatures, or biology. However, she sincerely doubted that other books would have any information on Strange Form, as much as she loathed to admit it. There had not even been a passing mention of his species, or anything even resembling his species, in the four books she had checked - and she was enough of an academic to know that if a creature wasn’t mentioned in the four most detailed books of species probably Equus, there was little chance of it being found anywhere else.
Strange Form, himself, was disappointed. Though information still flooded into him, large chunks of it ended up being essentially useless to him. He couldn’t help but wish Applejack hadn’t gone back to Sweet Apple Acres so that he could have some company while Twilight silently flipped through books and occasionally shot a question at him, or shot his attempts at starting a conversation down.
He found himself drawn to two select books on the shelf; one was called The Magic of Family and the other The Life And Times Of Starswirl The Bearded. Twilight caught his gaze - or whatever counted as a gaze when you didn’t have visible eyes or ocular organs - and focused onto The Magic of Family, having read through The Life And Times Of Starswirl The Bearded many, many times over. She grasped it in her magic and levitated it towards her, opening it and scanning through the table of contents, eyes narrowing as she caught the word ‘locating’.
Eyes bright and smile wide, she flipped to the page specified and found exactly the spell that they would need. Memorising the formula within seconds, she stuffed the book back onto the shelf and got off the chair, looking at Strange Form with a wide smile. Strange Form stared back at her, having absolutely zero idea what was going on. At all.
“Strange Form,” she began, “I know how to locate your mother.”
The xenomorph stared for another second before breaking out into a terrifying, elated smile at the news. “You - found something?” He rasped, voice still terrifying, though improving. Reveling in her find, Twilight ignored his vocal improvement and the fact that he seemed slightly taller than he had been an hour and a half ago, when they began this little quest.
Twilight nodded, still bearing a wide grin. “Yes, I did! I found a spell for locating any family members; as soon as I cast it on you, we can get going and find, your, mother!”
Strange Form hopped up and down on the floor before letting out a squee that was nearly a screech but recognisably not and tackled Twilight, wrapping his body around her and nuzzling her, giggling helplessly at the news that he was going to find his mother, that he was going to see his mother. Though a small part of Twilight protested the proximity of the predator, she couldn’t help but giggle with him; the last hour and a half had been impressively stressful, what with family being on the line.
She found that Strange Form, though heavy, was not heavy enough for her to have to struggle to stand with him still wrapped around her barrel. “First, though,” she said, “I’m going to send a letter to the princess about this - they might also know a lot more about your species, and I’m curious. Spike!” She called out.
Strange Form didn’t much mind. He was going to find his mother soon! Detaching himself from Twilight, he stood on the floor and stretched for a second, reminiscent of a cat, tail curling into the air like that of a scorpion and mouth opening with a loud yawn, showing off too many sharp teeth. As he did this, a small reptile walked down the stairs, freezing for only a second as he saw Strange Form.
Mind you, Spike had been living among ponies all his life, that much was true, and had adapted to an entirely vegetarian diet plus whatever gemstones counted as. However, subconsciously and instinctually, Spike was still a predator, and fight was an option far before flight was, unlike for most ponies. So though he did freeze for a second, he did then react to the presence of what was obviously a dangerous, monstrous predator looking as if it were about to pounce while it stood right next to Twilight.
Consciously, he only put together that Twilight had called for him and there was a horrible monster standing right next to her, and did not take into account her tone. Subconsciously, he recognised something daring to attack his family, something encroaching on what he instinctually considered his territory. He inhaled, a bright green glow showing in the back of his throat, and then he exhaled.
The ‘monster’ was instantly done relaxing, more than just his instincts and his mind roaring at him; his entire body seemed to scream that the incoming projectile was-
‘FIRE.’
-fire, fire, fire. He screeched and backed up rapidly, the superheated magical fire somehow making him feel uncomfortably hot, and then as if he was burning. The jet of fire stopped - after all, a baby dragon - or, at least, a dragon Spike’s size - could only breathe so much fire. Strange Form screeched again, but he didn’t feel like it was him doing it. He almost felt detached, but only briefly, back inside himself, but drowning in so, so much instinct to kill and maim.
The reptile dares to harm you, the ultimate predator! This cannot be allowed! Tear it to pieces, and then the unicorn - it was her fault for luring you into this! It was a trap, trying to shut you down before you can do your Hunting, Expanding, Protecting! Rend it to pieces, gouge the brain out of the skull, kill, kill, kill! Hunt it! HUNT IT.
As Twilight opened her mouth to apologise to Strange Form and make sure he was okay - she was going to say something along the lines of ‘Omigod, I’m so so so sorry, are you okay?!’ - but was blindsided, the xenomorph crashing into her side and knocking her over, using her as some sort of landing platform and launching himself off, crashing into Spike, claws seconds from piercing the scales that Spike had thought he could rely on to protect him.
Strange Form jerked Spike up to his face, slightly taller than him, and made him face away from him so he couldn’t breathe fire at him again. He opened his mouth and his inner jaw tensed, lowering down and shaking, ready to fire forward. Spike was going to die, which was no less than the SCUM deserves! If it thought it could outdo you, if it thought it could protect anyone from you, it was wrong! HUNT, HUNT, HUNT!
He found himself suddenly floating in the air, inner jaw hitting nothing and retreating back into his mouth, almost sulking as it retreated without the promise of a kill it had been given. His vision was covered in purple - no. Wait. His entire body was covered in purple. He was being levitated by Twilight.
Twilight spun him around, finding him strangely hard to levitate and knowing that it definitely wasn’t because he was heavy; there was something else that made her put in more effort, more concentration than usual. She scowled at him, though flinched when he hissed at her, seemingly mindless. Spike had dropped down to the floor and landed on his bottom, eyes wide as he shivered, rubbing against the slight grooves in his scales left behind by the claws of Strange Form.
“Strange! I’m sorry about Spike, but,” she exclaimed, stomping a forehoof onto the floor to amplify her words as he hissed, “you can’t just do - whatever you did! Strange! Strange Form!”
She found herself growing frustrated at his lack of response apart from mindless hissing. Strange Form found himself growing frustrated at his magical restraints, and felt something bubble out of him - he lunged forward, the purple field dissolving, as if melting, off of him. Twilight gasped and was about to scream only to find a claw wrapped around her throat and Strange standing around as tall as Big Mac or Princess Luna on two feet, another claw raised above her and falling towards her face. Twilight struggled for all she was worth, but couldn’t get out of his grasp.
Unicorns, rather obviously, tend to resort to magic as an instinct. The first spell that Twilight could think of was one that would blast him back and hopefully send him to sleep, and put it together in her mind rapidly and sloppily, firing it. The claw stopped an inch or less from her face. Strange Form dropped her and stumbled backwards, falling onto all fours. Spike breathed in as Strange Form shook his head, confused, but Twilight had some sort of feeling and magically covered his mouth.
Spike shot her a questioning look and closed his mouth. Twilight removed the cover and stared at Strange Form intently, only shaking slightly; a fact that she was, admittedly, proud of. He looked up at her, opening and closing his mouth before choosing an appropriate sentence to speak.
Strange Form looked at her nervously. Twilight looked at him nervously, already close to regretting her choice of stopping Spike.
“I’m so, so, so sorry I don’t know what came over me and I just, I mean, I, the, t-the fire made me panic and I was just suddenly angry or something and I wanted - I mean, I wanted - I mean, something changed and then I was - I don’t - fire - fire does something - and I didn’t mean it, and I’m so sorry, so so sorry, the fire-”
Twilight interrupted his raspy babbling, internally shivering at the voice and externally shivering at the fact that she had come unbelievably close to death and leftover adrenaline was still desperately rushing through her veins. Spike was doing exactly the same thing, though not bothering to internalise his fear of that horrible, grating voice. “I-It’s… okay, Strange. I… suppose I should have warned S-Spike. You seemed… d-different, Strange, after the f-fire.”
He looked down, clawing at the ground slowly, nervously. A part of him, however, was happy. Those amoral, disgusting instincts had entirely shut up - not even the slightest whispers of Hunting, Expanding, Protecting - as if they had been dragged out of him or knocked over the head or something, the second that spell had hit him. “I’m sorry… it’s just - I don’t know, I think fire, especially that close to me, or something like that, makes me panic hard… I didn’t know until now.”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, counted to five, and exhaled, repeating the cycle. After half-a-minute of this she opened her eyes and smiled at him - a shaky smile, but a smile nonetheless. “I-It’s… it’s alright. It was just an accident, right?” Strange nodded desperately. “Then it’s alright. As long as Spike doesn’t do that,” she shot Spike a glare to which he at least had the dignity to look ashamed at, “then it’s all okay. Just don’t suddenly panic again, okay?” She said, trying to joke around to lighten the mood and remove the suffocating atmosphere from the room.
Strange groaned. “Fiiiiine - I’ll try my best…” He said, joking. Twilight stared at him with wide eyes. Strange stared back with a fading smile.
Twilight began to giggle. A second later, so did Strange. Then, quickly, that evolved into raucous laughter as they rolled on the floor, the mood snapping to one of cheer all of a sudden. Spike could only stare at the nearly surreal experience.
“Why the hay,” he muttered to himself, too busy being confused to shiver anymore, “is everypony in this town crazy.”
After a full two, maybe even three, minutes of Spike being confused while Strange and Twilight laughed at the fact that one of them had almost killed each other, they began to slow down, though still erupted into giggles occasionally. After another few minutes of them calming down and Spike just being really bored, he spoke up. “R-Right. Why did you shout for me?”
Twilight, still grinning for what Spike saw as no reason at all, cleared her throat and stood up from the floor, Strange Form doing the same. “I want to send a letter to the princess.” She said, levitating an unused quill with still-fresh ink on it and a piece of parchment over to Spike from the desk she had been studying on. The parchment was blank because she hadn’t found anything, a fact she was still very slightly annoyed about. However, she was confident Celestia would know.
She cleared her throat and began dictating the letter to ‘the princess’. Strange Form had no idea in the slightest who that was, but rolled with it. He had only been born a few hours ago after all.
“Dear Princess Celestia,” Spike was writing straight away, claws writing down the diction at speeds that were just genuinely impressive, “Today, only around two hours ago, Applejack directed a new creature that seems of a ponies intelligence to me in order to help him find his mother. After doing rather extensive research, I find no mention of his species in any of the books I checked, and have never seen anything even slightly similar to him. He is generally friendly, excluding his propensity to overreact to-” she shot Strange Form an apologetic look. He just smiled at her. “-fire. I have found a spell that should lead us straight to his mother, but I would appreciate if you could give me your information - or a reference - for him. He says his species is called ‘xenomorph’.
“He appears to be digitigrade and is encased by some sort of exoskeleton that lends him a skeletal, almost biomechanical appearance. He is a muted shade of black. He possesses a distinctive, elongated, cylindrical skull and has no visible facial features other than a mouth filled with many sharp teeth that tell of a carnivorous diet. He possesses a long, thick tongue that ends in a sharp tip and, from the few quick glances I have gotten, is covered in some thick coating of saliva, or slime. At the top of his mouth is some sort of inner pharyngeal jaw. He is currently around my top lip in size, and is growing rapidly if I am correct.
“He also possesses a segmented, blade-tipped tail. This tail does appear to have a flimsy physical construction, though I cannot be sure of whether or not it is. The carapace of his head seems smooth vaguely translucent. From the claims of this specimen, he was born only a few hours ago, and is already of average, if not slightly below-average, intelligence. That concludes my description. Please reply as soon as possible - apologies, but I am endlessly curious of his species. Thank you, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Thank you... Twilight... Sparkle… alright!” Spike exclaimed, rolling the parchment into a scroll and taking a deep breath and… quickly turning from Strange Form before releasing his magical dragon breath. The scroll burnt up into ash which quickly flew out the window.
Strange Form looked at Twilight and was about to ask a question before she interrupted him. “That fire is magical; it can transport things like scrolls directly to Princess Celestia.”
He would’ve blinked in confusion if he could, but he decided he could ask about how in the world that worked, or in general how magic worked, or in general how the world worked, after the thing that came next. “So. The spell for my mother?” He rasped out, slightly impatiently after the in his mind too-long description of him - though, at least he vaguely knew how he looked now.
She facehoofed. “Right. Yes. Nearly forgot, sorry!” With a smile, noticeably more subdued, though not exactly strained, than earlier - though Strange Form could understand why - she cast the spell on him. Strange Form suddenly knew where she was. He turned and burst out of the door of Twilight’s library, turning to the sky, to a cloud house in the distance. Twilight trotted out and followed his gaze, ignoring the few ponies that were staring at them as they walked - though, to be fair, more at Strange Form, which though she disapproved of, she couldn’t really blame them for.
“She’s there. My mother is there.” He stated, voice raspier and more grating than usual, filled with emotion, absolutely terrifying even in comparison to earlier..
Twilight furrowed her brow. “I… alright. I’ll get my hot air balloon, I guess.”
She had a bad feeling about this. She would’ve noticed if something like Strange Form lived near Ponyville. And a cloud house? For something without wings? Something seemed overtly wrong; nearly ominous. As if something bad was coming.
Twilight was pretty sure someone she knew, at least as a friendly acquaintance, lived there. Something was wrong.
Strange Form was excited. Home was close. Mother was close.
Soon, he would meet his mother.
She’d be so happy. He already was.
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If Xenomorphs can cry, I have a feeling Strange will be in the next chapter.... I just hope Twilight can provide comfort rather then judgement at his inadvertent "murder" of a Pegasus she knew
9749540 Confirmed, xenomorphs cannot cry.
...no comment on the other part of your comment! Spoilers, after all!
Oh fuck, next chapter is going to be bad
awesome chapter
9749610 Thank you!
9749653 My poor, poor brain.
Next chapter! SOON!
Snake? SNAKE!? SNAKE!!?
9750776 Worry not! It's already partially written!
9751350
EXTERMINATE!!!!
"destroys tank and all soldiers with in it"
9752230
Exclamation: EXTERMINATUS!
9763835 Exterminatus is just an intense exterminate, confirmed.
9763835
EXTERMINATE!!!
"shoots you in the head and heart"
DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY TO ME
9764727
Exclamation: A$$HOLE!
Statement: That would have hurt if this Unit was not just coding in a machine at this point.
Informative: That was expensive tech too.
9764743
INTRIGUING, YOU ARE JUST CODE BUT YOU HAVE A PERSONALITY. ALSO I WILL TAKE THIS TECHNOLOGY TO STUDY AND MAYBE EVEN MAKE THE DALEK RACE STRONGER. AND IF THIS DOES NOT THEN I WILL DESTROY THIS AND FIND ANYONE ELSE WITH THIS TECH AND EXTERMINATE THEM.
"Takes whatever scraps there are to study".
9765266
*Scraps promptly explode*
Informative: This Unit has fail-safes against techno heretics like yourself.
9765275
"Just before scraps explode, throws up a shield to protect my self".
WHAT DID YOU CALL ME YOU INSOLENT WORM. I AM A DALEK, I THE FIRST TO ACT OUT A COMMAND FROM THE CREATER DAVROS HIMSELF. I AM NO HERETIC BUT,... PERHAPS WE COULD BE ALLIES. YOU SEEM LIKE A PERFECT WARRIOR TO HELP THE DALEKS TAKE OVER ALL OF THE UNIVERSE AND TIME. SO WHAT DO YOU SAY?
9765288
Response: No.
Informative: This Unit would rather study in relative peace to *Pause in transmission* that.
9765307
9765288
Caaareful, guys... wouldn't want my small supply of readers getting offed by the glorious and eternal Ban Hammer! Also, I doubt you guys would like it either!
9765717
Response: Acknowledged.
*Transmission Terminated*
9765717
ok