> Six Two Six
>  by lunabrony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Incoming!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Ah ah ah ah ahhhh!" Fluttershy sang. She was in the middle of a rigorous training program at her cottage. Most of the larger animals were frolicking outside in the damp grass, following the end of a small storm the pegasi had scheduled to come through early in the morning. The birds, however, were typically bound to the indoors after several rather stubborn individuals had decided to fly away and get lost. "Now you try!" She said in her quiet, encouraging voice.
"Ah ah ah SQWUAAAAAAAK!" Fluttershy's ears pinned on instinct from the awful noise, and she poked her head out from the flower pot she'd dived into. "Oh! That was... very good..." she said hesitantly. But let's try that again anyway, alright?"
There was a snort of laughter from the adjoining living room. "Good?" Discord asked, lounging on her sofa nearby and taking up nearly all of it. "My dear Fluttershy, if THAT was good, I'd hate to see what your version of awful is."
Fluttershy glared at him. "You're not helping."
"You told me not to."
"I told you to stop being a nuisance," she squeaked. "That is, if you don't mind..."
"Tomato, potato," Discord said with a wave of his claw. "My being a nuisance IS helping."
"I really don't think that-"
"Never mind. Just... keep doing what you're doing." Discord bounced up onto his claws, and headed into the other room. In the process, a large pitcher which had been sitting on the table by the sofa was knocked over by his tail, spilling its fruity contents all over the floor. Several animals rushed in to lick it up. "By the way, you're out of lemonade again. Might want to get on that."
Fluttershy felt her eye twitch. "Oh, why do I let him stay here? He makes me so frustrated I could just scream." She inhaled as sharply as she could.
"Ahh."
Feeling better, the pegasus returned her attention to her choir training. "Alright, that's enough for today. Remember what I told you, you HAVE to practice! Practice makes perfect!"
Discord in the kitchen. "But just yesterday, didn't you tell them that nobody's perfect?"
"That's right, because it's okay to not be good at-"
"Well if nobody's perfect, and practice makes perfect, then why practice at all?" He shrugged.
Fluttershy opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was a tiny squeak. "I'm going to storm out and slam the door to show him how annoyed I am," she decided, and made a quick movement for the exit. She headed outside, grabbed the door, and flung it as hard as she could. Within a second, she bit her lip, dove for the rapidly closing door, and gently pushed it close. "That'll show him."
She had just begun to make her way down the pathway by her house when the sky caught fire. Glancing up, she knew that a fireball in the sky was not something that was particularly normal, even by Equestrian standards. She squeaked and hid behind a tree, watching the fireball come spiraling closer and closer to impact.
"Um... excuse me..." she squeaked towards a few ponies passing by. "I think something's wrong with-"
"And then on my birthday, he tried to give me lemons, can you imagine?" The one mare was saying to her friend. "And I told him, I don't want your dang lemons, what the hay am I supposed to do with these?!"
"Um, excuse me, I think somepony might be in trouble, I-"
"And he got mad of course, and went off on a tirade about how he was going to burn my house down, and of course I was NOT having that, and on HIS birthday I got him a potato, and I laughed and laughed. Except he wasn't laughing, and-"
"Um... hello? I'm trying to warn you about-" Fluttershy was getting frustrated.
Scootaloo whizzed around the corner at that point on her scooter, propelling herself with her wings. She seemed quite agitated. 
"THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING!" The filly was yelling. She pointed upwards towards the fireball, which the two mares finally noticed, and broke into a gallop with yelps of fright. Scootaloo burst further down the hill on her vehicle, yelling warnings to anypony who would listen.
Fluttershy squeaked. "That's what I was trying to-"
"Don't worry everypony!" Pinkie Pie burst out of Fluttershys mailbox, an event which caused Fluttershy to stumble backwards and trip over a flowerpot. Fluttershy didn't dare ask how Pinkie had gotten in there, or how long she'd been there for.
"Oh, okay, I'll just... stay here..."
Pinkie glared up at the sky with the most serious expression on her face. "Hey! You! Sky! You are NOT allowed to fall down, you hear me?! Now you just march right back up there, mister, and stay in the clouds where you belong!"
The sky apparently had no intention of listening, and the fireball crashed down nearby in the Everfree Forest, raising an enormous cloud of black smoke along with a significant distant boom.
"Huh. I guess the sky didn't hear me. Oh well! Next time I'll have to use a megaphone. I have them stashed all over Ponyville, you know. In case of megaphone emergency. La la la la la la la..." Pinkie was off again, bouncing down the road without a single care in the world.
Fluttershy, on the other hoof, was more frightened than ever. "Oh, it landed in the forest! What if critters are hurt?" She gasped, and ran towards the entrance to the forest. Upon approaching it, however, she skidded to a halt. 'But it's really dark and scary in there..." She turned back towards the cottage. "No! My animal friends might need me!" She turned again towards the forest. "Don't worry little critters, I'm coming!" Fluttershy ran towards the forest, hesitated, and plunged into the darkness.
The site of impact was not incredibly hard to find, it was still light out, although the light was dimmed significantly by the forest. Fluttershy crawled under several fallen trees to reach the smoke pouring into the sky, and what she found was... well... she honestly wasn't sure what she found. The object was enormous and bright red. It was glowing slightly and giving off quite a significant heat source, so the pegasus elected not to touch it. It had left a rather sizable crater in the ground, and Fluttershy hoped that there hadn't been any animals underneath it. 
"Hello?" She called. "Is anypony hurt?"
The top of the metal object swung open, and Fluttershy yelped, leaping backwards. A loud cackling came from the inside of the object, and a small blue ball flung itself outwards. It rolled down the side of the metal, onto the grass, and towards Fluttershy, who was rapidly backing up. The pegasus found a tree directly behind her, and soon could not back up any farther. The ball stopped a few inches away, which Fluttershy could now see was covered in blue fur, and uncoiled into the strangest thing the pegasus had ever seen. It looked rather much (in her opinion, others would disagree) like Spike with fur, with the exception of the four arms, each of which held tightly to some sort of barrel that was aimed directly at her head.
"Are you hurt? What is that thing? What are you?" She had seen lots of strange things in the Everfree Forest, but nothing quite like this.
"Aggaba!" The creature demanded, glaring at her with large black eyes. It took a step closer, and prodded her with a barrel, sniffing at her.
"Is that your name?" Fluttershy asked, and scooped up the newcomer in her hooves. It didn't matter, she had a new animal friend to play with! "Oh, aren't you just the cutest thing I've ever-"
The creature growled at her, aimed one of the barrels in the air, and there came such a noise from it followed by a bit of smoke that Fluttershy decided she most certainly did not want to be on the receiving end of it.
"You poor thing, you must be scared and lost!" Fluttershy squeaked. "Come on, I'll take you home and give you a nice warm bowl of soup, and you can tell me all about it." She began trotting away, pausing only to look behind her and notice that the blue thing had not moved an inch, and still had its blaster aimed at her. 
"Oh, don't be scared, come on!"
"Naga!" The animal replied defiantly. 
"Please?" Fluttershy asked.
"Naga!" same response.
Fluttershy stomped her hoof. "I am not playing games, mister. We are in the middle of a very spooky forest filled with things that want to eat us. I don't know who or what you are but you are coming back with me RIGHT NOW." She leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowed, and Stared.
The blue creature stared right back, but eventually two of the creatures arms retracted, an unprecedented feature which caught Fluttershy off guard, and the other two slowly raised into the air. "Okay, okay..." it said. It was still holding the blasters, however, and Fluttershy didn't anticipate it giving those up any time soon.
"That's better." Fluttershy said, and began leading the strange creature back to her house. It was so small and fluffy, after all. How bad could it be?
> Famous Last Words
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Getting out of the forest was much more difficult than anticipated. Fluttershy walked slower than usual, but her blue companion didn't seem to have much intention of listening to her. Although he did follow her at a distance, which she was grateful for, he seemed more inclined to be shooting his loud, strange looking noise makers at anything that moved. She cringed every few moments as a result, especially as he decided to fire at a bird passing by.
*BLAM!* As usual, the blasters had been raised up in the air. The bird ducked and weaved, infuriating the small creature as he continued to fire until the bird was out of sight. That particular bird had been lucky, Fluttershy didn't want to think about what would happen if he actually hit it.
"Detaka, DETAKA!" He was laughing. Fluttershy didn't see what was so funny, and she still hadn't figured out his language yet, although a few words were understandable.
"You really shouldn't scare the wildlife like that, you know. They didn't do anything to you," she said quietly, giving him a scolding look. Trying to hurt wildlife in front of her was the equivalent of burning down a library front of Twilight.
The blue dog, for what exactly he was was unclear, and Fluttershy had simply resorted to thinking he was some kind of strange mutant canine species, simply stared at her with his large black eyes. His eyes were fairly emotionless and seemed to stare right into her soul. Fluttershy half expected him to catch fire at any moment. She jumped over a log near the entrance and landed in a puddle of water. Puddles were everywhere, which was to be expected following a large storm like the one that had passed through earlier.
"Come on, we're almost there. We'll get you inside and fed in no time," she said. Her companion seemed to perk up slightly at the mention of food.
The dog crawled over the log after her, but froze there. He glared down at the water with absolute distrust, and hissed at it, baring large jagged teeth and reaching out his lower set of arms for her. The upper set were still hanging tightly onto the blasters.
Fluttershy blinked, studying the new development. Then she gasped. "Oh, you poor thing, you don't like water do you?"
The dog hissed again. "Maka maka!" he said.
The pegasus was beginning to become discouraged, as she really wasn't used to having such a hard time understanding her animals. "I don't know what the means... I'm sorry... don't be angry with me!" She stepped closer, towards the log again, and the dog launched himself onto her back. "Ouch! Watch the wings!" she scolded, then her ears pinned again. "That is, um, if you don't mind." From here it was only a short trot towards her cottage, where her guest made him right at home on her doorstep, shaking himself off from accumulated dirt and debris. 
"Oh, please don't do... okay... I'll just... clean that up..." she squeaked, trotting around several otters to the closet, and picking up her broom. She returned to find Discord observing the newest resident with some confusion, poking at it with a claw.
"What IS it? He asked, seemingly either oblivious or ignorant to the fact that the irony of being quite a strange sight himself. At least to those who were more uneducated, or who didn't have a tendency to hang around Twilight Sparkle and all the weird things that seemed to happen around her.
"I think he looks like Spike," Fluttershy said, resulting in an amused snort from Discord.
"Really?" Discord looked at her. "If Spike was blue, had no tail, was covered in hair, had ears, and wasn't glaringly purple, then yes. You're right. He looks exactly like Spike. Now that you've pointed it out, I can't tell them apart! Oh, whatever will I do?!"
Fluttershy just gave him a sour look. "You don't have to be obnoxious about it, you know."
Discord rolled his eyes, took her hoof in his claws, and shook it. "Hello, I'm Discord, have we met?"
The pegasus ignored him, and returned her attention to the alien, who at this point was balancing on one hand atop a very fancy looking vase which had been sitting on an end table. Fluttershy's eyes widened with concern. "Oh, please, don't do that! That's a very important vase, Butterscotch gave it to me!"
Discord raised an eyebrow at that. "I thought you weren't ever going to mention him again."
"Just because I don't talk about him doesn't mean I don't miss him."
The dog just grinned, ignoring her protests, and jumped onto the table, picking the vase up, and raising it over his head.
"Oh, please, don't!" Fluttershy insisted. She really did like the vase. It was sentimental.
This only seemed to encourage him even more. "KWEESTA!" he shouted, and threw the vase down on the floor. Fluttershy gasped and dove for it, but missed. She closed her eyes, waiting for a horrible crash, but none came. She opened her eyes to find the vase hovering inches ahove the floor, which floated into the talons of the nearby draconequus. "You know, every now and then, I CAN be useful," Discord complained.
"Alright, alright. Thank you." Fluttershy said. "Now come on, we need to find out what you eat," she said, referring to the dog. This turned out to be a harder task than she anticipated. Her guest absolutely refused to eat vegetables, and turned his nose up at meat as well. Eventually he grew bored with her rummaging, and climbed onto the counter himself, grabbing one of the coconuts in the back and holding it up triumphantly.
"Mine!" He announced.
Fluttershy, although pleased that he did indeed know yet another word that she could identify, looked worried. "Oh, but I was saving that... but I suppose if it's all you'll eat, I DO need to feed you..." she sighed. She could always pick up another one at the market. "I don't have anything to open it with though, we'll have to go see Applejack for that."
"Mine!" he said again, holding onto the coconut tightly.
"Yes, you can have it. But we need to go get a special tool for that. So it's off to the barn. Come on," she said.
"Naga." The dog crossed his arms. The blasters had been hidden away, although Fluttershy wasn't sure where.
"Please?" She asked.
"Oh, come on. I won't make you touch any more water. The storm is gone, and the barn is right down the road."
"Coffee AND coconut!" the dog demanded.
"Oh... I'm sorry... I don't know what coffee is... I don't have any. Maybe we can get some in town somewhere. Is it a fruit?"
Fluttershy's guest facepalmed, but seeing he wasn't getting anywhere, jumped onto her back. It was only a short walk to the Apple Farm from there, and now that the sky had cleared up, the sun was starting to come out again. Fluttershy was pleased to see that Applejack was home, out in the front orchard with a Frisbee in her mouth. The farming pony reared up on  her hind legs and hurled the disc, sending a frantic Winona after it. She looked up, surprised to see Fluttershy out and about, but not about to complain.
"Well howdy there, Flutters! Fancy meetin' you out here! Uh... whatcha got there?" She asked, tilting her hat upwards.
"Oh, I don't know yet. I found him in the Forest."
"In the Forest, huh? Ya know, fer a pony who's scared of most everythin', y'sure go in the dangerous forest by yerself a lot. No offense."
"Oh, none taken, you're right, I am really scared of everything. But this little thing needs me."
The dog growled, he seemed to think otherwise.
"Huh. Well don't get too attached, yer gonna hafta return him."
Fluttershy blinked. "What? To who?"
"Well ain't that a collar around his neck?" Applejack asked. Fluttershy had been so busy, she hadn't even noticed.
"Oh, gosh, it is! But that means he belongs to somepony!" She set the dog down at that, studying him. A red collar was indeed around his neck, but it was so worn and faded, it'd clearly seen years of usage. The clasp was a complicated one, and with neither of the two ponies being unicorns, they were far from able to remove it. Applejack spat on her hoof, giving the tags a heavy rubbing. 
"Hoof shine, works every time. It's pretty worn, but ah can still make out some engraving. Stitch, ah think."
Fluttershy looked excited. "Is that your name, Stitch?"
"Ih, Ih!" The dog said approvingly.
"Wuzzat mean?" Applejack rubbed her neck, as equally confused as Fluttershy.
"I think it means yes," Fluttershy said. "Well I don't know why he's here or where he comes from, but we'll find all that out  if we can. Welcome to Ponyville, Stitch."
Applejack grinned. "Aw, he's cute. Maybe he can be a little friend for Winona, if he don't cause too much trouble 'round here." The dog in question returned at that moment with the Frisbee which had been thrown. Stitch reached out his claws awkwardly, giving a terrifying grin while doing it.
"Hi..."
Winona whimpered and ran back into the house.
Fluttershy shook her head. "Oh, no. Just look at that face! How much trouble could he possibly be?"
> Recruiting Help
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	With Stitch running around Sweet Apple Acres, and neither mare having any idea of the destructive capability the alien possessed, the two friends had finally gotten a moment to catch up regarding recent events. Fluttershy kept peering over Applejack's shoulder to try and make sure that Stitch didn't hurt himself, but after the alien had come out of an entire field of jagger bushes without so much as a scratch, Applejack suspected he'd be fine.
"And y'found him in out in the Everfree? Jes' like that?" Applejack asked. She was a bit curious, but at the moment her worry was overriding her curiosity. She wasn't particularly sure why, but something about this whole situation sounded bad. Stitch wasn't like any creature either of them had ever encountered before, and they'd encountered some weird creatures.
"Oh, yes!" Fluttershy confirmed. "He was in this big metal thing, I've never seen anything like it before. It looked like some sort of container, and it fell right out of the sky! It's rather useless now, I hope it didn't land on anypony..."
"Fluttershy, focus! Out of the sky, huh? Now ah don't mean tah question yer logic, but if he fell outta the sky in that thing, how in the hay ain't he hurt? Ah can believe in luck, seen a lot of that, but ain't no survivin' falling out of the sky."
"Oh, I hadn't thought about that... maybe I was wrong... I'm sorry!" Fluttershy squeaked.
"Oh, don't start that up again. Now listen, y'all get back tah Discord and see what y'can find out. Ah'll take Stitch fer a little bit and bring him on over to yer cottage in a bit. Maybe ah kin find somethin' out y'all missed."
"Oh, thank you!" Fluttershy seemed relieved to not have to worry about Stitch for a little bit. Of course he was welcome to stay with her during the duration of his visit, and she felt responsible for him. However she needed just a few moments on her own, and with Applejack temporarily taking over, she made her way back to her own cottage to set things up. She was going through all the things she'd learned about Stitch already in her head, trying to think of how to make him comfortable, just as she did with all her other animals. "Coconuts, I need coconuts. I still don't know what coffee is..." Angel tapped his foot impatiently as Fluttershy paced, pointing to a large stopwatch he was holding over his head. Fluttershy just shook her head.
"It's not dinner time, Angel. You're just going to have to wait."
"Hello, Fluttershy!" Discord appeared in front of her, floating several inches off the ground. Fluttershy glared at him. "Why the long face? Get it, because you're a pony?" He seemed particularly amused by this joke. "You're not still upset about this morning, are you?"
"You've been very mean today, Discord. You know I don't like it."
Discord sighed. "That's just how I am, Fluttershy. You really should know this by now." He twirled his claws around in the air, slightly bored with not being up to anything even remotely resembling mischievous.
"No. This is not how you are. You're chaotic, not a meanie. And you're going to knock it off right now."
"But-"
Fluttershy's left eye twitched, and she glared at him. "Right. NOW."
Discord backed away some, his claws in the air. "Alright, alright, fine. I'm sorry."	
"There. Was that so hard?"
The draconequus just sighed, and left Fluttershy to her work. "Just so we're clear, I'm not promising not to cause trouble. Only to stop bothering you. For now."
"I wouldn't have it any other way," Fluttershy squeaked. Perhaps things were starting to look up after all. Having Discord in her home was nothing close to easy, but it had been beneficial to have someone so skilled in magic to help out when all of her priorities and responsibilities became overwhelming.
***
"Git back here, ya thievin' varmint!" Applejack yelled, chasing Stitch across Sweet Apple Acres. She'd witnessed firsthoof the small animal take devour no less than five apple pies which had been cooling on the window. Those pies, which had been an order for a very nice mare by the name of Peach Cobbler, were already being rapidly re-made by Apple Bloom in the kitchen, and Applejack had a few choice words for Stitch. 
Stitch seemed to enjoy the chase, ducking under tables and through windows. But it wasn't until he climbed straight up the side of the wall that Applejack suspected something was odd with him. She became even more annoyed upon seeing this, and reached back to her side to bite down on the trusty lasso attached to her saddlebag. 
"Alright, y've done it now!" The farm pony twirled the rope a few times, creating a spectacular circular effect in the air. The rope flew, wrapping itself around her targets waist. Applejack gave an excited yell, and pulled tight. "Yeehaw, ya don't mess with Applejack!"
Stitch, however, apparently did not get that memo, as he merely gave her an amused look, took the rope in both claws, and broke it in half. With that done, he proceeded to disappear in the direction of the nearest barn.
"Buh... buh... buh..." Applejack stammered. "That was mah great great gran'pappy's rope! Ain't nothin' EVER broke that! Not even a buffalo!" She protested. "No way that lil' critter is stronger than a buffalo!" She wasn't happy with this newest development, and was even less happy when the ground began to rumble, a huge cloud of dust rising into the air as the barn in which Stitch had recently taken refuge collapsed in on itself. The small creature stood in the middle of the wreckage, completely unharmed, and grinned.
"KWEESTA!" Stitch really didn't seem to have any reservations about destroying anything, a fact which rubbed Applejack the wrong way. He had a collar, which meant somepony owned him. And if somepony owned him, he HAD to have some sort of training. They were missing something, and she was determined to get to the bottom of it.
Applejack threw her hat down on the ground. "THAT TEARS IT!" She left the alien to his own destructive instincts and galloped for the only pony she knew who could handle problems like this.
***
"No, no, no!" Twilight paced back and forth, clearly upset about her latest method of organization. "We need to try again, maybe this time if we organize all my books by publication date instead of by author..."
Spike sighed, trying to calm his friend down. "Twilight, we've been at this ALL day, is it really that big of a deal if you can't find one book once in a while?"
"Big deal? Big deal?! Do you know what would happen if Princess Celestia wanted me to do a research paper on the elusive sphinx, and I couldn't FIND my one book on sphinxes because I didn't have a specific section for journals published in the 19th century?! It'd be a disaster!" Her horn glowed, levitating almost a hundred books off the shelf, and dumping them onto the floor. Spike yelped and made a run for it, but was quickly buried in books. "We need to do this right!"
There was a pounding at the door at that moment, and Spike popped out of the avalanche of books, rubbing his head. "I'll get it, you just keep... doing what you're doing, Twilight." He quickly ran to the door, in need of a bit of luck for today. Maybe Rarity was paying a visit. He flung the door open, the hopeful look on his face fading. "Oh. It's just y- I mean... hi Applejack!" He said cheerfully.
"Riiiiiight..." the farmpony said in confusion, and stepped inside. "Is Twilight here? We got a problem."
"We have a problem too, though I don't see what could POSSIBLY be worse than a missing book, the fate of Equestria lies in the balance!"  He said sarcastically.
"See, Spike? I knew you'd understand!" Twilight said, emerging from the back room. "What brings you here, Applejack?"
It took Applejack about ten minutes to relate everything that Fluttershy had told her, concluding with her most recent experience with trouble at the barn. "Ah don't understand it, Twi! He took down a whole barn, wasn't hurt or nothin'! Ah already feel like ah gotta put up a new barn every other week, ain't nopony got time fer that!"
Twilight was on her hooves with excitement, the missing book temporarily forgotten. "A new species? A strange new object? Mystical powers? This sounds like an exciting new research opportunity!"
"Did y'all really just use excitin' and research in the same- wagh!"
Twilight had grabbed Applejack as she raced out the door. "Spike, stay here and watch the shop until we know for sure what's going on. Feel free to nap or do whatever you like."
Spike saluted. "Yes ma'am!" He knew exactly what he was going to do, and rubbed his claws together in anticipation. It'd been a long while since he'd gotten a chance to get at the-
"And stay out of the ice cream! You know what happened last time!"
Spike's earfins drooped. Rats.
Back at Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack and Twilight were on the search for Stitch. Applejack stood by her destroyed holding facility, holding her hat over her chest with one hoof. "Barnaby, we're gonna miss ya. Y'all were a good little barn, never stood a chance..." She sniffed.
Twilight stared at her. "Barnaby?"
Applejack quickly composed herself. "Never you mind!"
Twilight just shook her head. "Alright, now where did you leave him?"
"Leave... him?"
"You said this little Stitch creature seems immune to damage, has heightened strength, and likes to destroy things. Surely you didn't just leave him here alone and expect him to be here when you got back?"
Applejack turned red. "Well..."
Twilight sighed. "Alright, here's the plan. You get Rainbow Dash and find Stitch. I'm going to take somepony out to the crash site, see if we can't fix up that strange object Fluttershy talked about."
"Who you gonna take out there?" Applejack asked. "Rarity won't go in the forest, especially not after a storm like we had this mornin', everything's gonna be all wet and muddy. Prissy little..."
"Applejack!" Twilight warned.
"Sorry. Pinkie is... well quite honestly ah never know where Pinkie is." Quite franky, neither of them ever really knew where Pinkie was. When she wasn't occupied with working at the bakery, she just sort of showed up whenever she was needed, and none of them questioned it.
Twilight looked apologetic. "Somepony who might actually stand a chance at fixing whatever it is that's out there, and I only know one pony who's that good at fixing things. You aren't gonna like it, but I need her skills, even if she doesn't know she has them."
Applejack frowned. She trusted Twilight, but she had a bad feeling about this.
A few minutes later, Twilight and Applejack stood in the doorway of a brightly colored room at Sweet Apple Acres.
"Y'all want me tah what?!" Apple Bloom protested.

> A Terrifying Discovery
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"What do you mean, slow search?!" The complaint came from Rainbow Dash, who, while eager to help any of her friends, did not fancy the idea of doing so at minimal acceleration.
Applejack sighed. She wasn't one to complain, especially not about being paired with a good, loyal friend like Rainbow Dash. However, Applejack was used to slow and patient work, such as what a search team typically consisted of. She wasn't about to leave a possible hiding place unexplored, not one that could be hiding the target they were looking for. She'd seen Stitch climb straight up her farmhouse wall, which meant he could be just about anywhere. And since it had taken almost an hour to get Rainbow Dash to actually wake up, they'd lost a lot of valuable time.
"It means jes' what it sounds like, sugarcube," she said patiently. "This Stitch fella is fast and sneaky, so we gotta take advantage of every possibility. He could be anywhere." Rainbow Dash, as it so happened, was zipping in circles around Applejack, anxious to get  moving.
"Well why don't you just let me do a few circles around Ponyville then? Maybe I'll spot him."
"By flying in circles around an entire town? And still manage to find a creature smaller than Winona?" Applejack asked, slightly suspicious as to the odds of that particular occurrence.
Rainbow Dash frowned. "It could happen. I'm awesome like that."
Applejack sighed. "A'ight, we're losing ground standin' here arguin'. You circle around Ponyville a few times, look for ANYTHING that looks recently destroyed. If y'find somethin', don't waste time reporting back to me. Investigate, and detain him if you have to. Don't hurt him, though! Bring him back to the library, ah jes' wanna ask him a few questions. Ah'm sure Twilight wants to ask him a few herself, but we gotta wait for her t'get back."
Rainbow saluted with a hoof. "Circle around, look for clues. Got it!" And she was gone like a streak of rainbow colored lightning, shooting upwards into the sky and zipping towards Ponyville, which wasn't all that far away from Sweet Apple Acres. Rainbow Dash was, without a doubt, the best flyer in Ponyville, and one of the best to come out of Cloudsdale Academy. Of course, according to her she was one of the best in Equestria, but that was pushing the limits of belief, for there were plenty others in Equestria who were a little bit faster or a little bit stronger. But none of that mattered right now, she was on a mission. Rainbow flew slightly slower than usual, which wasn't saying much considering her usual speed, but it was slow enough that her sharp eyes were on the lookout for anything unusual. "Can't let Applejack down, gotta find something!" She said to herself, flying past a large, elaborately decorated circular building.
Inside said circular building, a perfectly coiffed mare with a pristine white coat was pacing back and forth, looking with disapproval at the latest line of fashions which had made their way into her designing room. "No, no, no!" She sighed.							  "That's not right either, it HAS to be perfect!" The outfits were ripped down, and thrown into a large wicker basket, the contents of which would be recycled later. "It doesn't scream 'summer'," she was saying to her cat, who looked as if she'd rather be anything else. "I'll simply have to try again, now where did I put my measuring stick?" It was at this moment that said stick was handed to her, a gesture in which she initially took no notice. "Oh, thank you darling," she said, her horn levitating it. "Now I just need to... to... to..." she sputtered, whirling around in surprise. It was only then that she noticed the small blue creature sitting on her work table, fuzzy arms outstretched as if it was about to hug her neck.
"Aloha!" Stitch announced, giving a wide, unsettling grin. And with that, he jumped onto the mare's back, cackling with delight. "Giddyup!" He demanded.
Rarity, for who else could it have been, stumbled backwards in surprise. She absolutely under no circumstances did NOT 'giddyup', but rather her face contorted with rage. "What... but... how did you get in here?! SWEETIE BELLE!" She yelled accusingly.
The small filly in question appeared in the doorway moments later, dressed in a black full body suit which left only her eyes visible. "What?" The little one asked.
Rarity pointed to Stitch with her hoof. "How many times have I told you not to let in stray animals? And WHAT in the name of Equestria are you wearing? You know very well how I feel about jumpsuits."
"I didn't let him in!" Sweetie protested. "And it's not a jumpsuit, it's official gear. We're gonna get our ninja cutie marks! Well, we were. Scootaloo and I have to wait, Apple Bloom got pulled away for something."
Rarity facehooved. "Of course you are. Be a dear, would you, and get this thing out of my workspace? It's shedding everywhere!"
"Okay!" Sweetie approached Stitch, who looked at her suspiciously. "Awwwww, he's adorable!" Stitch made a face, one which implied he was not okay with being called adorable. "Can I keep him? Can I? Can I? Can I?"
"He has a collar, darling. I'm sure he belongs to somepony already. Somepony who owns a vacuum, I can only hope." She shuddered. "Now do remove him, please."
Sweetie Belle's eye widened. "Hey! Maybe Scootaloo and I can get our dogsitting cutie marks while we're waiting for Apple Bloom!" She grabbed Stitch, and hauled him out of the room before the latter knew what was going on.
In the meantime, Twilight had since entered the Everfree Forest with Apple Bloom, and was walking slower than usual to   ensure that the youngster did not run away like she did the LAST time the two of them were out here.
"Ah still don't understand what ya need me for," Apple Bloom was saying. "Ah ain't no good at fixing things, there's gotta be somepony better qualified then ah am!"
"Didn't you fix up that old clubhouse almost by yourself?" Twilight asked gently.
"Well yeah, but that was different! That was jes' puttin' up boards together and installin' some wiring, not fixing up a... what did you say this thing was?"
Twilight thought a moment. "Well, I haven't seen it yet, but Fluttershy said it looked like a ship, and it came from the sky. Maybe even from space. So I guess you could say it's a..."
"...A spaceboat!" Apple Bloom finished.
"Makes sense," Twilight agreed, and the two of them entered the clearing.
The spaceboat had left a long crater before finally coming to rest in the forest, and Apple Bloom's eyes became wide as dinner plates. "Whoa... wait. You want me to fix THIS?!"
"Just take a look at it, that's all. I'm sure you'll find something you- Apple Bloom! Get down from there!" Twilight scolded, as the youngster had jumped right up onto the vehicle.
"There's some sort of door up here!" The filly announced. "It sounds like there's somepony inside, somethin's movin'!"
"Apple Bloom! Get behind me at once!" Twilight ordered, of which the young filly obliged with a bit of eye rolling. Something indeed could be heard rummaging around inside, and Twilight banged on the door. "Come out of there!" She ordered.
There was no response, but after a moment or two, the door swung open. Twilight took several steps backwards, guarding Apple Bloom from the inevitable evil inside, her horn already charged up and glowing with a protection spell. 
A dark shape slowly emerged from the hatch, first one leg, then two. Then immediately followed by a burst of confetti.
"Hi Twilight!" Pinkie exclaimed. "Are you guys playing hide and seek too? I think I lost..."
Twilight stared. "What... in Celestia's name... what are you doing out here?!"
"Gummy and I were playing hide and seek! But he'll never find me in here!" The pink pony climbed out of the hatch, only revealing when she jumped down that a small green alligator was already attached to the end of her tail. Pinkie gigglesnorted. "Whoops, I lose again! He's really, REALLY good at this!"
Twilight's eye twitched. Apple Bloom was watching all this and clearly finding it extremely funny.
"Never mind that, now." Twilight said disapprovingly. "We're on an important mission. We're looking for-"
"A small blue creature named Stitch who's unusually strong and unusually immune to damage because he's actually a genetically engineered alien designed to cause mayhem and destruction just like six hundred and twenty five others but he's here by accident because he's from another world and stole a spaceship but somehow accidentally ended up here and now he's running around Equestria causing trouble so you have to find him and get him back home because if you don't then someone back in HIS world is going to notice that he's missing and be really really really really really sad?" Pinkie asked.
Twilight could feel one of her migraines coming on again. "How... did... you..."
"Just a hunch," Pinkie said cheerfully.
"..." Twilight had no words for this, and it took a moment to collect her thoughts again. "Okay... that's one theory...but we have no evidence that he's an alien. He's just weird. We need more proof before we can make an assumption like that."
"If you say so." Pinkie shrugged. "Oh! I was gonna show you something! Maybe it'll help you." She jumped back into the hatch. "I think Stitch found something that you're going to want to see." She disappeared into the hatch again, and several items flew out as she dug around. Twilight had to weave to avoid a sled, an inflatable pool toy, a sink, a flashlight and a flexible rubber sword. "Found it!" Pinkie announced, and held up an object that Twilight had prayed she'd never have to deal with again. "It's really funny that this thing is in here, I thought you said you buried this?"
"I DID." Twilight insisted. And if Stitch had indeed found it, and was indeed inclined to cause mayhem and destruction as Pinkie had so casually mentioned, then they were all in a lot more trouble than she'd first anticipated.
The object that Pinkie was holding... was the alicorn amulet.
"At least he took it off, right?" Pinkie asked, as cheerful as ever.
Twilight paced back and forth. "Yes, that's fortunate. He's small, so my guess would be that it didn't fit properly. But if is indeed destructive, even if he'd been trained to be not so destructive, the corruption may have been just enough to remind him how much fun it was being bad."
Pinkie shuddered. "Am I the only one who feels like Stitch with the alicorn amulet is like... the scariest thought in the history of EVER?"
Apple Bloom tilted her head. "So what do we do?"
"Bloom, I can't believe I'm saying this, but can you stay out here and try to fix the spaceboat? Do NOT go wandering, we need a way to get Stitch home after all this is over."
Apple Bloom saluted. "Ah'll try."
Twilight continued. "Pinkie, we're going to need to remind Stitch how to have fun without being destructive. We're going to need a party."
Pinkie wobbled for a few seconds, and burst several feet into the air in an explosion of streamers. "WOO-HOO!" she screamed.
Twilight sighed. "As for someone who knows about being bad, I'm going to have to talk to Discord. And I'm going to need a LOT of anti-headache spells. Thank Celestia I learned a few from Cadance. Finally, we need Fluttershy."
"Why Fluttershy?" Apple Bloom asked.
"She's the one who found him, and she's the one who can understand the animals. If things go south, she may be the only one who can stand between success the complete destruction of Ponyville," Twilight said.
"Pinkie is good at finding things, I'm sure he'll turn up," Twilight said confidently. She took hold of the amulet, and stuffed into her saddlebag. They might need it later, and when this was all over, simply hiding it might not be enough anymore. "I'll get the rest of the girls together, and figure this out. Alright ponies, we have a battle plan! Let's move out!"

	
> The Final Frontier (Part 1)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Yesterday...

Stitch bolted out of the second floor window of the small Kaua'i house. It would have been more reasonable to use the front door, yes, but where was the fun in that? His flexible frame allowed him to tuck himself into a tight ball in midair, a basketball sized sphere of fur by the time he hit the ground. Bouncing twice and breaking into a rapid roll, he skidded around the side of the house towards a worn, rocky path. The only obstacle that could really stop him was the disapproving voice of a young girl.
"Where are you going?" She called. "It'll be dinner soon, you're not going far, are you?"
"No!" Stitch lied with a cackle, and continued his rolling without looking back once. He did feel bad about it, but these 'good lessons', as she called them, were getting on his nerves. He wound around a fork in the path, one which would have inevitably led to the beach, but he had no intention of going to the beach. Too many people there, and far too many opportunities to get in trouble. No, he much rather wanted to go back into space. He'd promised several times to try not to cause trouble, and technically going into space wasn't causing trouble, right? There was nobody to harass, and very few things to break. Well, an overwhelming amount of orbiting junk if you wanted to get technical, but nothing worth breaking that mattered to anyone anymore.
Stitch bounced up and broke into a run, diving into a small hole in the ground on the outskirts of town. The object he was interested was very cleverly hidden out here, buried under loose branches and debris. Often times it would be hidden in different places depending on the tourist season, to decrease chances of discovery. However, he wasn't worried about that right now. The girl would have scolded him for being so careless, but what she didn't know meant he wasn't going to get a lecture about it. There was the healthy thrum of engines, significantly reduced in noise compared to other shuttlecrafts of that size. The large red vehicle hovered off the ground, discarding the foilage which had hidden it. From there, it was only a matter of flicking a few safety switches and pushing his claws forward on the throttle to blast the shuttle towards the sky. Stitch loved the sight of the ground dropping away, taking all of the annoying rules and regulations with it. He knew he'd have to come right back, but just a few minutes in space where he didn't have to listen to anyone telling him what to do wouldn't hurt anything. Besides, it wasn't like he was going very far. What's the worst that could happen?
Unfortunately, the worst that could happen came in the form of a Galactic Federation ship, much bigger and stronger than the small shuttlecraft which Stitch was piloting. A deep voice came through the intercom, one which caused the fur on Stitch's neck to raise in annoyance.
"And just where do you think you're going? Did you really think you could go for a joyride and I wouldn't notice?" The voice asked.
"Gantu!" Stitch growled.
"That's Captain Gantu to you, Trog!" the voice barked.
"Ex-Captain, just big dummy now!" Stitch countered, laughing and steering his vessel further away from the planet.
"You're in for it now! I'll have you arrested for treason! Insubordination! Insulting a superior officer! Maybe all three!" Gantu threatened.
"Gotta catch Stitch first!" the alien challenged, and thrust his shuttlecraft into hyper drive. He didn't have the capability to hit warp at the moment, but he could go pretty fast. Faster, he reasoned, than the massive, clunky Federation ship behind him. Gantu, as expected, took up the pursuit, and the chase was on.
Stitch weaved back and forth through the starfield, navigating through floating junk which had long been abandoned. While impossible to replicate, Gantu chose instead to merely plow right through the debris, which harmlessly bounced off his shields. Stitch growled, he'd have to be more resourceful. He flew his small ship back towards Earth, hoping that Gantu would avoid following him in such a large ship. But his nemesis had done it before, and did so again. Stitch growled, unable to lose Gantu so easily, and pressed forward on the throttle, breaking back into Earth's atmosphere. He'd have to try something drastic. Intent on plummeting his ship towards the ground as fast as possible, he'd be able to use the small size of his shuttlecraft to clear the ground before Gantu did, and avoid an embarrassing collision. Mathematics and formulas were already running through his head, calculating the exact moment of when he'd have to pull up. Gantu, never the smarter of the two, fell into the trap quite spectacularly, and the two ships chased each other closer and closer to the ground.
Stitch grinned. It was so easy, it almost wasn't any fun. Almost. He peered out the window to check the status of his descent, and noticed something very odd. Colors were rippling outside the windows, never the same for more than a few seconds. Red, blue, yellow, red, yellow, green, blue, orange. Always changing, with no noticeable pattern to them. Stitch was so absorbed in this new development that he forgot his calculations completely, and even if he'd been asked after everything was said and done, could never quite explain what happened next. He only remembered a brilliant flash of light and color.
Gantu, however, had been right behind Stitch as the explosion took place, and felt the impact as his ship was hit by what felt like a massive shock wave. He glared down towards the ground, already retreating as he knew that people would have either seen or heard something, and in moments would be flocking to find out what it was. He didn't feel like explaining his presence to the Galactic Federation. He saw only a trail of rapidly fading colors, and absolutely no sign of the ship he'd been chasing. 
"What's that little Trog done now?" He snarled. Unable to risk sticking around to find out, he was forced to abandon the scene for now and disappeared off and returned to orbit, loitering into deeper parts of space.
> Where No Experiment Has Gone Before (Part 2)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Stitch was honestly not sure what had happened. One moment he was barreling towards the ground in his ship, with plenty of time to pull out of his descent and (hopefully) make a show of embarrassing Gantu, the next he was... well, he was still barreling towards the ground.
But not in the same way as before.
A moment ago, before the colors had surrounded his shuttlecraft, he'd had a very clear view of Kaua'i. A small village, a beach, lots of homes and businesses. The school of dance where he'd spent so many lazy afternoons. He knew the place backwards and forwards, although he didn't get to see as much of it as he would have liked because the girl typically kept him contained. This, however, this was different.
The colors were brighter and sharply defined, almost to an unbelievable degree. The trees were much too green, the sky was much too blue. Perhaps this was what the rest of the world was like, he wasn't entirely sure, having never ventured outside of Kaua'i. Disregarding space, of course. But he was fairly certain this wasn't right. He only had a few moments of visibility, however, as the ship was falling out of the sky far too quickly. He saw what appeared to be a large forest looming up beneath him, and swore under his breath.
"...Blitznak." This wasn't going to be pleasant. The ship had been hardened and reconstructed to handle his rather violent methods of piloting, but not even that could survive a crash like this. The impact was such that would have instantly killed any other normal organism, but Stitch was far from that. He curled up tightly into a ball moments before impact, and the crash sent him bouncing around the interior of the vessel. He finally came to rest wedged under one of the back seats, the ship completely totaled. Great. Just great. He'd been trying so hard to be good, and now she'd surely spray him with that infuriating water bottle again. He crawled out from under the seat, and cracked his back.  A few sore muscles, nothing more. Thank goodness the girl wasn't with him.
Crap. The girl. He'd have to get home. He'd promised he wouldn't go far, and now he didn't even know where he was. Stitch popped the hatch with some difficulty, using his bare claws to bend a steel bar blocking the door and tossed it aside. He crawled out of the hatch and was immediately hit by unnatural darkness. Not total pitch black darkness, but a strangely menacing one. Visibility was minimal. He'd need night vision for this. He blinked several times, trying to adjust his unique biological tuning. His eyes blinked red. No, that was infrared, useless. He blinked again, his eyes glowing green. Aha! Night vision, that helped. He peered around, scurrying down to the ground to survey the damage. The ship was on fire, sending thick plumes of smoke up into the sky. Most of the smoke was blocked by the thick trees, but a decent bit was getting through. Good, maybe someone would see it. Crap, not good, maybe someone would see it! He looked down at himself, this would be hard to explain. 
Stitch crawled away from the wreckage, trying to find anything useful. His night vision made things stand out more clearly, which helped in this dark forest full of oddly menacing trees. He tried to keep his eyes on all of them at once, they literally seemed to be trying to grab him with their overhanging dead branches. He tried not to wander too far from the ship, but managed to get himself lost several times anyway. He swore the paths kept changing direction. Eventually he came to what appeared to be a small grave, and his ears lowered. A lonely grave, out here in the middle of nowhere? Who would be buried all the way out here in such isolation? His gaze lowered to the marker. 

Dusk Shine - Valued Friend

An odd name, but regrettable just the same. Stitch loved causing trouble, but not death. Never death. He was curious though, about something which didn't quite fit. With his heightened senses, normally, graves and such things smelled... unpleasant. But here, there was nothing. He didn't want to disturb some poor souls lost friend, but he was bothered by this flaw in logic. On a whim, Stitch clicked his vision again, this time to X-Ray. He only meant to peer at the ground to see if indeed someone was buried far below, but to his astonishment, there was something else there. Nothing that resembled remains, anyway. 
Only something that clearly appeared to be a box.
Stitch scratched his head. Why would a box be buried here? Unless this wasn't a grave at all, but a ward to fend off overly curious nuisances. Like himself. In order to hide something. Having now 'accidentally' confirmed that there was not actually a body below, Stitch began to dig. Something he was quite good at. And it took only a few moments to pull a small metal box out of the ground. He grinned to himself, feeling a bit like he used to before the girl came around. 
"Sneaky..." he admitted, and lifted the box off the ground with one hand, running it back to his ship. There was a simple padlock on it, but he yanked it off as easily as if it was made of plastic, and swung the lid open.
Stitch's already large eyes grew even larger as he beheld the item inside. It was some sort of large trinket, triangular in shape, with what very much appeared to be a winged horse growing out of it. It was really an unusual sort of thing, but Stitch liked unusual. He pulled it close to his chest in greed, and the trinket had an even stranger reaction. The eyes of the horse began to glow a supernatural shade of red, blue streaks of lightning crackling out of the center ruby.
Stitch threw the object to the ground, not because of pain of fear, but because of the bad thoughts filling his head. Thoughts of destruction and evil, such as sending out a secret frequency from the radio towers that would cause every radio  in Hawaii to play nothing all day except Justin Bieber. He had been working so very had to be good lately, and these thoughts were overwhelming him.
"No!" He shouted in defiance, and threw the object high into the air towards the ship. By pure chance, it bounced off a tree branch, and fell right into the open hatch. As possessive as he was of this new toy, he quickly followed it, leaping into the smoking ship and slamming the hatch closed. Inside, all his training and moral reservations were being swallowed by the raw instincts the object had opened up. Not removed completely, but pushed aside where he'd have to work much harder to get at them. 
He'd have to stay here for now. He didn't see any signs of residency in this forest, and if he were to leave in his current condition, he didn't want to think about what might happen. As long as nobody distracted him, he could-
"Hello?" A a voice called. "Is anypony hurt?" The voice sounded shy and timid, but then again, it was a stranger. Strangers were usually bad.
Blitznak! This wasn't good. It might be a friend, but then again, it might be someone trying to haul him back to the Galactic Federation. His last primarily good conscious thought was that he hoped it was the first option, and it was only moments later that he had drawn his weapons, and burst out of the hatch to confront the intruder, the strange object which had caused so much grief left forgotten in a corner of the ship.
> Resistance Is Futile
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	With Stitch missing in action, Twilight had no choice but to call upon her friends. The six ponies were gathered in the work room of Rarity's Boutique, as the mare in question was under a deadline and had politely declined to leave her work to chase down some hyperactive alien of unknown origin. She had compromised, however, and kindly allowed the other five to use her Boutique as a headquarters.
"Cutie Mark Crusaders ALIEN CATCHERS!" Sweetie Belle announced excitedly, all dressed up in her Daring Do Nightmare Night outfit, complete with a large butterfly net slung across the back of one shoulder. Although the Six had tried to keep their activities quiet, the young ones had a way of finding things out anyway. And having such information kept from them only resulted in them being even more determined to find out what was going on.
"Sweetie Belle, honey, this isn't a game," Rarity said gently. "We have absolutely no information about what or where this thing is, and it could be dangerous. This is a job for big ponies, so run along."
"I AM a big pony!" Sweetie insisted, pouting her lower lip so severely that Rarity had simply taken to calling this attempt at manipulation 'the face'. 
Twilight frowned. "And big ponies go to school. Which you aren't in right now because..."
Sweetie Belle brightened. "Firestrike tried to get his cutie mark in safely transporting hazardous waste. He didn't get it, but they had to shut down the school." She brightened up suddenly. "Maybe if we get bitten by radioactive animals we'll get...like... radiation powers or something! I'm gonna go tell Scootaloo!"
Sweetie Belle raced off, followed quickly by a suddenly concerned Rarity.
"You will do no such thing! Come back here!"
Fluttershy looked at the ground. "Should we wait for her to come back? I'd hate for her to miss anything..." She looked at the ground, scuffing at the abnormally clean floors with a hoof.
Twilight shook her head. "We'll have to fill her in if she's gone too long, we have too much to discuss. Does anypony know where Stitch came from?"
Pinkie started bouncing. "Oh! Oh! Oh! Mememe!"
Twilight narrowed her eyes. "Somewhere more specific than from space? You have the actual name of a-"
The bouncing intensified. "Space?! I like space! I wanna go to space! You know what my favorite part of space is? Trick question! IT'S SPACE!" Pinkie settled down for a moment, and lowered her hoof from its raised position. "Oh...Stitch? Haven't seen him."
None of the ponies seemed to know exactly where he'd come from, so Twilight continued. "Does anypony here have a logical reason why we should continue to focus our efforts on sending him back to wherever he came from? Implying that he can't stay here."
Fluttershy squeaked. "Um... well... he has a..."
Rainbow Dash interrupted. "He can climb up walls and he's super strong, that's totally cool!" She grumbled. "Almost cooler than me, even. I say he needs to go, he's making me look bad."
Twilight sighed. "We can't send him away just because he's showing you up, you'll just have to deal with that."
"But-" Rainbow protested.
"No! I'm sorry Rainbow, but it's a fact of  life. Nopony is the best at everything all the time. Besides, I thought you LIKED  competition?"
"I do, but he's a little TOO good, but even if he can outlift me, he still can't outrun me!"
Fluttershy raised her hoof a bit more. "If you check the collar around his-"
Rarity returned, looking a bit out of breath, but presumably Sweetie Belle's desire to become irradiated had been exterminated. She had heard snippets of the conversation as she returned, and promptly resumed her place behind her sewing machine. "I for one think Stitch is quite adorable, he simply needs to be kept on a leash. Such a charming little creature."
Rainbow Dash eyed the fashionista. "He ripped your fabric and SPAT an acidic hole in your floor," she reminded her.
Rarity twitched. Having been as busy as she was, she had not yet encountered this particular set of damages.
"Well... they're only material things, damages can be replaced."
Rainbow Dash sighed. "He thinks plaid is fashionable."
"He WHAT?! Send the brute away at once! Banish him!"
Applejack cut in. "He destroyed mah barn, ah can't keep buildin' barns, ya know!  Barns don't grow on trees! It takes time an' money, time an' money ah don't always have!"
Fluttershy squeaked, her voice rising a bit. "I really think that someone might be look-"
Twilight shook her head. "Well most of those are logical reasons, but there's a collar around his neck. This implies ownership, and although it's hard to believe, someone must be looking for him. We have a responsibility to reunite them!"
Fluttershy's ears pinned. "Oh, never mind... I'll just stay here until you're done..."
"Fluttershy!" Twilight barked.
"I DIDN'T DO IT!" Fluttershy yelped. "Oh, yes Twilight?"
"You know more about animals than any of us, you're going to have to be the one to convince him he needs to go back home, can you do that?"
"I think so," Fluttershy responded.
"Good. Get Discord to help you, it might take chaos to find chaos. Have him set up various traps, such as easily breakable objects, and leave them stationed around Ponyville. Eventually he's going to want to break something. Dash, you're the fastest, you'll be monitoring these traps."
Rainbow trotted in place, impatiently. "Great, can I go now? I'm happy to help, but I've got lots of cool stuff to do."	
"Fine, go, but stay close. We'll need you."
"Yeah, yeah, stay open. Got it." Rainbow bolted out a window, and streaked out of sight.
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Pinkie!"
"Yepparooni!"
"Get a party ready, lots of loud bangs and noisemakers, but don't set them off until we tell you. Have Applejack help make some cakes and pies, those sorts of things."
"Oki-doki-loki! But what about you?"
"I need to check on Apple Bloom, she's been working on that ship for several hours now. Rarity, you stay close in case he returns here. If you see him, follow him."
Rarity looked despairingly at Twilight, then back at her work. She hated the thought of procrastination, there was still a lot to do to prepare for an order she had to send to Canterlot in a few days. But Twilight and the others would always come first, and she gave a weak smile.
"You can always count on me, darling."	
***	
Approximately an hour after the meeting took place, Twilight had gathered up enough resources to ensure that everything was going as planned. The party was in full preparation, Rainbow Dash was scouting the city or doing whatever it was that she did when she wasn't napping. Rarity was on lookout, and Fluttershy had enlisted Discord in creating several sneaky and outlandish traps. Things ranging from a single bucket of paint precariously balanced on top of a ladder, to a seemingly abandoned table full of cakes. 
Twilight trotted down the path through the Everfree Forest, and paused when she heard a multitude of voices coming from the direction of the spaceship. Voices that sounded very scared.
"Help me, help me, don't eat me!" That sounded like Apple Bloom!
Twilight teleported forward, flash after flash propelling her forward, making her way to the spaceship as quickly as possible. It took several seconds to arrive in the clearing, where she quickly scanned her surroundings to find out what was going on.
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were huddled together under a tree, shaking with fear. Approaching them was what appeared to be a large, monstrous reptile, jaws filled with teeth. Sweetie Belle stood on top of the ship, holding what very much appeared to be a weapon in her hooves, her head and horn wrapped in what appeared to be aluminum foil. "I got this!" Sweetie announced. 
"Don't worry girls, I'll save you!" Twilight yelled, and rushed the monster from behind. It was fairly odd looking, but most things that came out of the Everfree Forest were. The unicorn rushed forward, preparing a heavy kick from her hind hooves, a move that Applejack had taught her several times.
Apple Bloom suddenly stopped shaking. "No, Twilight, wait, it's not-"
Twilight slammed her hooves into the monster from behind, which slammed into a tree. The monster lay still for a moment, then rubbed its head. "Anypony get the number of that carriage? I'm filing a complaint..."
The unicorn frowned. She knew that voice. She approached, and flipped over the 'monster', looking down into the face of her loyal assistant. "Spike?!"
"Hi Twilight." Spike said, still a bit groggy.
"What in Celestia's name are you doing?!"
"We're playing Alien Invaders!" Scootaloo said.
"I'm a dragon!" Spike announced.
"And I'm the fearless laundromat come to save them!" Sweetie Belle squeaked.
"I think you mean astronaut," Apple Bloom corrected.
"Great, egghead, meet dictionary. Dictionary, meet egghead," Scootaloo said.
"Sweetie Belle! Put that down at once," Twilight demanded. "Where did you even get that?!"
"It was in the spaceboat!"
"Well put it BACK in the spaceboat, you could've been seriously hurt!"
"Oh, fine..." Sweetie disappeared into the hatch, returning empty hooved a moment later.
"And Spike, what are you doing out here? I told you to stay at the Library!"
"But you always tell me to stay at the Library, and I've already done all my chores," Spike complained. "You girls are always running around all over Equestria, having adventures, but where's Spike? At the library, always at the library. I want to have fun too, and you hardly ever take me with you."
Twilight felt rather bad about that, and decided to fix that later.
"And Apple Bloom, why aren't you working on the spaceboat? I told you to fix it."
"Oh, ah fixed it about an hour after y'all left. Insulated a few wires, hammered out some dents, reconfigured th' control board, replaced a few fuses. Most of th' replacements were under the seats. Gimme somethin' hard tah do next time," she shrugged.
Twilight blinked, giving a subtle blink to the filly's flank. Still blank.
"And did you perhaps feel as if you were any good at all that?"
Apple Bloom shrugged. "Aw, heck no, it's just stuff ah know how tah do, ain't no talent in it. B'sides, ah've redoubled mah efforts on gettin' mah cutie mark in scrimshaw, ain't gonna have time for this namby pamby fixin' stuff!"
"Scrimshaw?"
"Y'know. Whale bone carving!"
Twilight sighed. So much for that. "How do you even... never mind. Alright, well it's getting late, the sun will be down soon. You girls go STRAIGHT to Sweet Apple Acres, alright? This forest is-"
"Dangerous, we know." Scootaloo finished.
The three fillies ran off, and Twilight returned her attention to Spike. She was about to say something, but was interrupted by Rainbow Dash, flying in from overhead.
"Twilight! We spotted Stitch in Ponyville, just like you said!"
Twilight nodded, and grabbed Spike, leaving the silly dragon costume behind. The three of them raced/flew towards Ponyville, determined not to let Stitch get away again. He was hard enough find as it was, maybe now they could finally get some answers out of him.
> The Worst Possible Thing
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Everypony was busy gathering materials or making preparations to finally lure out and contain the destructive blue creature that had fallen from the sky. Twilight, in her spare time, had been trying to read up on anything that might resemble the visitors species, but had fallen short. At present she had just left the forest with Rainbow Dash, both eagerly racing towards Ponyville for their first shot at a successful capture.
Pinkie Pie was also quite busy, digging around in the storage room for something she kept locked away for especially demanding occasions. As of the present, she'd only had a few chances to use it. The item she pushed out of the storage closet was covered in a sheet, the only thing visible, or what should have been visible, were the heavy wheels on which it rolled.Or should have rolled. This time, however, Pinkie found the object much harder to maneuver than usual, and conducted an investigation under the sheet. The wheels were completely missing, and a yellowed note was stuck to one of the axles, apparently having been there for some time.
You'll thank me later.
Trixie 
Pinkie threw her hooves up in the air, jets of steam bursting from her ears. She screamed towards the ceiling, although her dramatic outburst would have been more entertaining had anypony actually seen it. 
"TRIXIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!" She yelled, then quickly burst back into her normal energetic self. "Oh, how silly, I have spare wheels stashed in the chimney, in case of wheel emergency!" In moments the covered object was fixed, and Pinkie continued her quest rolling the mysterious item towards the center of town. Applejack was already waiting for her there, as the entire Apple family had been critical in creating the baked goods which lined the tables that had been set up. Nopony was sure if they'd even be needed, but they'd spared in expense in creating alternative options.
Rarity was occupied, as she so often was, with preparing an order for a client, however that had not stopped her from participating. She had worked double time to get as much work done as she possibly could, then left for the center of town early to cover the tables with elaborate cloths. Appearance was everything, after all.
Fluttershy, however, had the most important role. Her ability to communicate (to some degree) and understand the animals more than the others gave her the best chance of finding out where Stitch came from, and more importantly, how to get him home. She was on her way back to her cottage, having been delayed some as she'd needed to help a lost squirrel find its way to the north end of town. When she did arrive, she found the Cutie Mark Crusaders in her yard, bouncing a large cardboard box back and forth. Sweetie Belle knocked it towards Scootaloo with her hoof, who in turn knocked it to Apple Bloom. What a strange thing, didn't they have actual toys?
"Um, girls, what are you doing?" She asked in wonder, approaching.
"We're kickboxing!" Apple Bloom explained. "Applejack wouldn't let us practice on each other, so we had tah try somethin' else. Why, what're ya doin? Where are ya goin'? Can we come?!""
Fluttershy blinked. "Oh, we're just trying to catch a critter that's gotten loose, we've set up a whole bunch of things for him in the center of town, we'll have him in no time," she said, and went inside. She was fairly certain Apple Bloom already knew full well what had been going on, the other two perhaps to a lesser extent. Inside, Discord greeted her with his usual enthusiasm.
"Hello, Fluttershy! Are you ready for some fun?" He asked with a smile.
"I suppose so. Did you finish the traps that Twilight asked you to make?"
"Yes, of course," he sighed. "They're so simple and trivial though, why can't we make some really good ones? Something other than broken plates and string. I mean honestly, a few cans of spray paint? That's boring!"
"It's not about chaos, it's about potential chaos," Fluttershy reminded him. "We need to lure him out, and we should really be down there already. Will you come along?" She asked. "If you don't mind..."
"Not at all. Hold tightly now!"
Fluttershy barely had time to ask him what he meant before he teleported them both to the center of town. Fluttershy disliked teleporting, even when Twilight did it. It made her head all woozy. They landed underneath one of the covered tables, where Applejack and Pinkie were already waiting.
"Ack! Send a warnin' or somethin' before y'all do that!" She complained. She didn't hate magic, but didn't quite fully approve of it either. It seemed to her a substitute for honest hard work, why reach for something when you could float it down, or walk anywhere when you could be there in an instant? It wasn't as satisfying, but she recognized situations where it was necessary.
"Th' others are hidin' in their spots, y'all got back a bit late," Applejack said. "Rainbow Dash flew ahead and said that Stitch was spotted near-"
"There he is!" Pinkie exclaimed, peeking out from under the tablecloth, and effectively cutting off Applejack, who glared at her.
"...Ponyville." Applejack finished.
Indeed, Stitch had returned. The 'dog' was in full feral mode, extra arms, antennae and spines extended. Spike, who had joined underneath Twilight's table seeing as the Library was temporarily closed, shuddered.
"Dude, that's creepy. What kind of dog does that?"
"None that I know of," Twilight said. "I don't think he's a dog at all, heck, Pinkie may have been onto something before."
Stitch scurried forward, pausing to examine the expansive line of dominoes which had been erected. Time had been short, and Discord had been elected to conjure up an intricate system of them, as they hadn't the resources to set up them by hoof. Stitch cackled with delight, and flicked a claw against the tile on the end. Naturally they began to fall against each other, clacking faster and faster, distracting the experiment.
"That's yer cue, Fluttershy." Applejack whispered. "Go nab him."
Fluttershy suddenly wanted to do no such thing anymore, and began to back away. "I... um... actually think I hear my teddy bear calling..."
Applejack was about to have none of this, and shoved Fluttershy out from under the table. The pegasus rolled and tumbled out, landing on her hooves behind Stitch, shaking her head to clear the sudden disorientation. Stitch's heightened senses had not failed him, and by the time Fluttershy was on her hooves, she was already facing down the barrel of a blaster.
Stitch growled, facing down the pegasus, who shifted uncomfortably. "I don't want to hurt anypony," she said gently. "I only want to be your friend."
The word 'friend' seemed to initiate some sort of relapse in the alien, who, very briefly, almost seemed to lower his weapon. But a moment later they were up again, baring large teeth.
"Come on now, don't you think you'd rather get a nice big party instead of a dungeon sentence?" Fluttershy asked, who gestured to the large covered object Pinkie had wheeled over. The party pony burst out from under the table, whipped off the sheet.
"Preeeeeeeesenting, my super duper-ific one of a kind patent pending double barreled PARTY CANNON!" Pinkie exclaimed, and lit the fuse. "HIT THE DECK!" She squealed, and dove into a bush. Both barrels fired loudly, coating the entire town center in confetti and streamers. At the same time, though he had covered his ears at the noise Stitch seemed to become increasingly relaxed at the sight of the sudden party atmosphere. Fluttershy hugged him from behind, and although there was resistance, there was no violence. Not towards her, at least.
"That's right, you're just a poor little misunderstood... whatever you are... and Fluttershy is here to make it all better. You just wanted some friends, and I'm going to be your friend." Fluttershy said.
All seemed well at that moment, until the Cutie Mark Crusaders made yet another appearance charging down the middle of the street, frustrated at having been left behind again, even more so when they saw the newly decorated party scene. They were not amused.
"AW COME ON, we missed all the fun AGAIN?" Scootaloo protested.
"Girls, go home at once, this isn't a party!" Twilight insisted.
"Could have fooled us," Apple Bloom countered.
Stitch, however, snapped back into his defensive mode as the intruders came charging in out of nowhere. He raised his blaster protectively, and everything seemed to happen in slow motion after that. The girls continued their approach, ignoring the protests of Twilight Sparkle, drawing closer and closer to Fluttershy, still desperately hugging the alien, who now ignored her. His weapon was trained on the girls, who had never seen the likes of him up close before, and immediately wanted to know what he was. Stitch hesitated, but moral reservations had been abandoned. He fired, someone screamed. Time slowed to a dead spot for what felt like hours, nopony daring to move. Perhaps he had missed, yes, that was the most logical conclusion. A lot had been happening at once, it would have been understandable for him to miss.
Unfortunately, time resumed its relentless march forward. Seconds later, Sweetie Belle collapsed to the ground.
	
> Primary Function: Exposition
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"SWEETIE BELLE!" The name of their friend burst out of Apple Bloom and Scootaloo in unison. Both fillies had been standing only a few paces away when the blaster was fired, and had recovered from their initial shock of seeing the unicorn fall to the ground. Sweetie Belle remained motionless.
Rarity pushed her way forward, a weak grin plastered on her face. The other ponies had rushed forward to help the fallen filly, but Rarity's horn pushed them back. Rarity threw herself down upon the ground in front of the younger unicorn, her voice cracking and void of most emotion.
"Oh no. Sweetie Belle. My sister. I am so scared. Whatever shall I do?" She threw a hoof up to her forehead dramatically, sweeping her younger sister up close to herself.
Twilight looked confused. "Rarity, are you alright?"
"Of course, darling, Sweetie wasn't hit, she just fainted, that's all. I'll get her home at once." Before anypony could protest this obvious fabrication, Rarity was carrying the small unicorn towards the Boutique, who cracked an eye open as they left.
"So much for the acting classes," Sweetie whispered.
"Shush!" Rarity hissed. "I can't explain your just getting up after being hit like that, and they aren't ready to know the truth yet!"
Back at the town center, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were once again being sent home, as the grounds had been deemed too dangerous  As the two fillies headed towards home, they glanced at each other.
"Didja see what ah saw, Scoots?"	
"Thought I saw... like... metal or something.
"Maybe Sweetie's a robot!"
"Yeah, sure, a robotic Sweetie Belle. As if THAT would ever catch on."
In the meantime, the remaining five friends had surrounded Stitch, who, although all four blasters were pointed in four directions, was still outnumbered by the ponies who did not take kindly to him shooting their friend.
"Get ready, you little punk. It's clobbering time!" Rainbow Dash announced.
Another voice chimed in just as the five began to close in on the alien, who at this point was beginning to look rather worried.
"I'm afraid there will not be any clobbering today, Rainbow Dash," the voice said.
Twilight's eye twitched. She knew that voice. But it couldn't be, she wasn't prepared, and hadn't recieved any formal announcements! Twilight whirled around, and found herself face to face with Princess Luna.
"But... but... Princess Luna... what are you..."	
"Did you really think that a foreign object could fall through my sky and I wouldn't become aware of it?" Luna asked. "But that is no matter, in the meantime, we have a lot to talk about. Discord, if you would, please?"
Discord shrugged, and with a flick of his claws, a large purple bubble appeared around the alien. Stitch pounded on it in protest, but the bubble held.
Dashie's face contorted with fury. "Aw, come on! Why didn't you just do that in the first place?!" she demanded.
Discord cracked a smile. "You never asked."

> Going Up?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The center of town was now quite clustered, even by its normal standards. Barricades had been erected to protect the rest of Ponyville's residents from the aliens destructive habits, and several ponies crowded around the wooden bars to get a better look. Even more were showing up now, since word of Princess Luna being in Ponyville was spreading like wildfire. Celestia, okay, that was a fairly regular occurance these days. But Luna? Katie, bar the door!
On one side stood the Mane Five, sans Rarity of course, who had run off to tend to her younger sister. On the other side was Discord, who tended to Stitch, still trapped inside a strong magical bubble. The alien was quite upset, and dramatically pounding on the inside of the containment field. It wasn't doing anything, which only infuriated the alien more. He wasn't used to not being able to break through things. Next to them stood Princess Luna, who eyed the sky with a watchful gaze. It had been an extremely eventful day, and the sun would be going down soon. Stitch or not, she still had a job to do.
"You didn't have to come all the way out here..." Twilight apologized, still quite upset that she hadn't been warned earlier. The unicorn had Spike on her back, who was dictating the events in a large journal as quickly as his little claws could manage to write. Although truthfully she just hoped Luna didn't ask to see the Library, it was a mess at the moment.
"It wasn't a matter of warning you," Luna said. "I was made aware of a large object falling from the sky when nothing was scheduled to do so, so of course I had to look into it. And then of course Celestia and I started putting the pieces together, and when she found out there was going to be a table full of cake, she insisted we come at once."
At this particular revelation, Applejack looked pleased as punch. "Well ah'll be dipped, Princess Celestia likes mah cake!"
"Celestia's here too?!" Twilight was quite beside herself now. "But my latest thesis isn't ready for-"
Luna raised a hoof. "Calm thyself. We aren't here for you this time. We're here to ensure that this creature here, whom you call Stitch, is properly returned home. His presence here, through methods I shall decline to elaborate on, is an anomaly. Having him stay here would result in the fracturing of several dimensions."
"Another dimension thing?! That's totally cool!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. Of course she was still bummed, as the rest of them were, that they hadn't been permitted to participate in the last trans-dimensional adventure, but at the rate alternate universes were popping up, it wouldn't be long before they did.
Pinkie Pie, who had been unusually silent, was busily trying to remove Gummy from the chocolate fountain, which the alligator had decided would make a fantastic shower. This resulted in the two being absolutely covered in molten chocolate, and Stitch twitched slightly while watching them. They were making such a mess, and it looked rather fun.
"So what do you need from us?" Twilight asked.
"Not from you. From Fluttershy," Luna corrected.
Applejack did a double take. "Pardon?"
The mare in question instantly looked startled. "Wait, me?!"
"Yes, you," Luna said. "You have a way with talking to animals, of which Stitch qualifies. If you can persuade him to behave himself, I think the rest of our jobs will prove all that much easier. Can you do that?"
"I can try," Fluttershy squeaked.
Luna frowned. "It's important that he behave himself, do or do not, there is no try."
Twilight watched while Spike hurried scribbled in the journal. "Spike!" She whispered
"Are you finished with that report?"
"Which one, Twilight?"
"The Teleportation Practice Survey report from Canterlot, don't forget about the new cover sheets."
"I got it, Twilight. Don't worry, you can count on Spike!"
Fluttershy, meanwhile, had nodded to Princess Luna, and approached the bubble in which the alien was contained. "Hey... um... you." She said hesitantly. "Yeeeeeeeeah... um... if you could just stop causing trouble and be nice, that would be great..." 
Stitch snapped at her, dragging his claws along the inside of the barrier. It didn't appear as if he wanted to comply.
Fluttershy was unphased, and tried again. "Pretty please with a cherry on top? You have a lot of friends out here who care about you, and being mean like you've been doing really isn't any way to treat friends."
Stitch growled again, and spat acid upon the inside of the bubble. The revolting slime dripped down the barrier in large globs, but even that did not melt through Discords magic. Stitch didn't seem particularly amused by this, and huffed in frustration. Although he could talk, he usually chose not to, especially around strangers.
Fluttershy sighed, she really didn't want to resort to it, but there didn't seem to be any other choice. She narrowed her eyes at him, stomping her hoof in the ground. "Listen here, mister. I've had just about enough of your acting up. You've caused trouble, destroyed my friends barn, shot a sweet little girl with that noise maker of yours, and your behavior has just been absolutely unacceptable. Now you're going to start acting right, and we're going to help you get home. Do I make myself clear?" She hissed.
The redness in Stitch's eyes faded somewhat, and although he was hesitant, saluted her. "Stitch... behave." He said.
"Good. Discord, release the bubble."
"But..."
"I said release it!"
Discord shrugged, and the containment unit dropped. Stitch stood looking for a minute like he was about to run, then slowly climbed onto Fluttershy's back, who immediately perked back up.
"There, now was that so hard?"
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Okay, so if he came up from up there, and he's down here now, how do we get him back up there?"
Luna just smiled. "Thank you for that charmingly descriptive question, Rainbow Dash."
"Thanks, I totally thought of it by myself."
"Celestia and I tracked Stitch's entry, and during the event he was travelling at speeds rarely seen in Equestria, due in part, we think, to his flying machine."
"You mean the spaceboat?" Pinkie asked.
"Yes, the spaceboat. It appears to be some sort of magical metal capable of great speeds of flight. Speeds of which previously only our own Rainbow Dash has managed to achieve."
"Whoa! Hold your horses!" Rainbow exclaimed.
"How are we supposed to hold ourselves? Like this?" Pinkie asked cheerfully, and lifted herself off the ground by her own tail, staying airborne for several seconds before crashing back to the ground.
Rainbow Dash continued. "You're saying he's not only from another dimension, he's faster than me?!
"Nopony's faster than you, Rainbow Dash," Applejack whispered under her breath, to which Rainbow Dash gave the farm pony an icy death glare. 
"That better not mean what I think it means, because if it means what I think it means, it better not."
"Another priceless quote from Rainbow Dash," Applejack quipped.
"Girls! Focus!" Twilight chimed in.
"As I was saying," Luna continued. "He seemed to have come here with remarkably similar speed and energy to a sonic rainboom. And that was coming down, So we need to replicate the results, only going in the opposite direction. That should be enough to propel him back where he came from."
"A sonic rainboom... going up?" Twilight asked, sounding somewhat flabbergasted. "Is that possible?"
"It should be, with the spaceboat back under full power, and the addition of these," Luna said, gesturing to a stack of large blue squares which had previously gone unmentioned.
"What are those fancy doohickeys?" Applejack asked, scratching her head.
"A new invention Celestia and I have been working on, they're called solar paneling. They use the energy of the sun to create magic. A single focused burst should be enough added power to propel the spaceboat to sonic rainboom velocity."
Applejack sighed. "All this math makes mah head hurt."
Rainbow Dash was grumbling. "But rainbooms are MY thing... I knew this dog was trouble..."
"Wait." Twilight said, already processing this. "We attach these solar panel things to the spaceboat, and use the sun to make it go faster?"
"Essentially yes," Luna said.
"But how are we going to get a solar beam that powerful? We don't know anypony who can just harness the energy... of... the..." her eyes widened.
Luna grinned. "I see you figured the rest of this out," she said pleasantly. "Don't you worry, this should work. We'll get Stitch back home in no time."
Pinkie Pie, nodded, bouncing in circles around Twilight. "Yepparooni! It's gonna be fun fun fun! And then we'll be all done and you can go back home and work on your fanfic, Twilight!"
Twilight gasped. "It's not a fanfic, it's a thesis!" She insisted.
Stitch just clung to hugging Fluttershy's neck. As much as he liked it here, these ponies were crazy. No matter, he'd be home soon.
> Back to the Present
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	With Stitch in Fluttershy's care, the group had very slowly disbanded, the majority of each of the ponies having somewhere else to be. Applejack headed home to ensure that Apple Bloom had made it back safely, and had not gotten distracted on the way home and become hurt after trying to get a falconry cutie mark or something. Rarity was already spoken for, busy in her boutique working on an order that was due to be delivered soon. Rainbow Dash grew bored that nothing of significant coolness was happening, and flew off to find something else, much cooler and worth her time, to do. Pinkie had returned home with Gummy, both covered in chocolate, and excitedly mentioned something about a bubble bath.
Twilight Sparkle led Princess Luna deeper into the Everfree forest, approaching the spacecraft which had become the origin of all of this nonsense. Behind her trailed Fluttershy, with an ever curious Stitch on her back. And behind them came none other than Princess Celestia, who had been in town to sample the cake she had heard was being provided.
"Here it is," Twilight said, feeling a bit proud of herself for knowing something that the Princesses didn't.
Luna of course HAD known exactly where the spacecraft landed, using  point of origin, trajectory, and estimated site of impact. But she made no mention of this.
"Thank you, Twilight." She said.
Twilight did not answer right away, for she was retrieving the alicorn amulet from the inside of the vehicle. She was disturbed that Stitch had found it, and still did not know how. She'd tried so hard to hide it the first time, but wouldn't make the same mistake again. After a moment she exited the spaceboat, the amulet tightly guarded. "You're welcome, always glad to help," she said. Princess Celestia had gone around the side of the craft, examining it, but was also magically installing the solar panelling. This only took a moment, fixing the panels to the sides of the ship.
Stitch hugged Twilight around her neck, and although she was apprehensive about his strength, she allowed it. He did the same for Luna, who seemed thrilled to get a hug of her own, and soon after the alien turned to Celestia. "Worst pony!" He snapped, and ignored her in favor of hugging Fluttershy. "Miss you most," he said.
Celestia's mane flared up, and her eyes narrowed. She looked shocked, and a little bit hurt.
"TO THE-"
Luna placed a hoof on her sisters shoulder. "Be still, 'Tia. How were you supposed to know? It was an accident, nothing more. Such things happen all the time."
Twilight looked over. "What happened?" She was concerned that apparently something had happened in her absence, and even more so that she was only learning about it now.
The Night Princess explained, "Celestia ate the last of the coconut cake, Stitch took it... poorly."
Celestia waved a hoof in protest. "Well it was all just sitting there and the situation had been resolved, and you all know how much I like cake!"
Fluttershy nudged the small blue creature with her nose. "You go on now, you have friends and family waiting for you. You will always be welcome at my cottage, if you find your way back here again."
Stitch jumped inside the spacecraft, and grabbed at the controls, even though the ship wasn't on it. "Vroom! Vroom!" He said impatiently, bouncing in the seat. Luna exchanged a glance with Celestia.
"Are you sure about this? It's dangerous."
"I will do what I can. I know my limits," she assured Luna.
Stitch began to fire up the ship, the loud noise causing all but Celestia to back away, covering their faces with front hooves to shield them from the powerful wind the ship was kicking up. The spacecraft rose higher into the air, charged under its own power, but also charged by the solar paneling. Celestia spread her wings, beating them against the powerful current to match the altitude of the ship. Stitch accelerated, while Celestia flew alongside.
The alicorn's horn glowed and sparked quickly, channeling the power of the sun directly into the ship, via the extra panels. The panels were designed to create magical energy, which flowed into the engines and warp drive. The engine roared to life ever stronger, and the alien driver laughed in anticipation.
"Now!" Celestia yelled, barely able to be heard over the noise. Stitch floored towards warp, going straight up.
"He can't maintain that altitude! He's going to stall out! I've seen it happen to Pegasi before!" Twilight yelled to Luna.
"Shouldn't be a problem with the solar acceleration!" Luna yelled back. "But we only have one shot at this! Celestia can't maintain that sort of energy output for long, nor that kind of altitude!"
Stitch rocketed towards the sky, faster and faster, the solar beam just enough to cause a few ripples of light around the windows. Unlike the first time it had happened, his confidence grew, rather than his uncertainty. He continued to push the ship higher and faster, until even the alicorn beside it couldn't keep up any longer.
Celestia fell back, her horn still glowing, but not able to maintain velocity with the ship.
"It's working!" She called.
Stitch pulled the throttle as hard as he could, and the colors accelerated, wrapping around the windows. There was a
bright flash of light, and a rainbow rippled across the sky in its place.
Out above Ponyville, Rainbow Dash had been watching, and her jaw dropped. "So that's what it looks like from the other side..." She muttered to herself. "That was totally Rainbow!" She fistpumped. "Yes!"
Down below, Celestia landed among her sister, Twilight, and Fluttershy, all four looking up at the fading colors.
"Do you think he made it back?" Twilight asked. "What if we just sent him into an alternate dimension or some sort of twisted version of Equestria in the 80's?"
"We may never know," Celestia said. "Some mysteries are better left unsolved. And some questions better left unanswered."
"You mean like why they call it a hacksaw if it doesn't even hack anything?" Twilight asked.
"Yes, one of many questions, Twilight." Celestia said fondly. "One of many questions."

***


To Be Concluded...

> Epilogue 1: The Fluttershy Ending
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Fluttershy Ending

With all the commotion died down, and her friends finally returning to their lives, Fluttershy began the weary journey back to her cottage. She hadn't ever expected to become so wrapped up in all this adventure, and although she was proud of herself for how she'd handled things, she wanted nothing more right now than to disappear inside her home for a few days and pretend to be sick.
The house was quiet as she entered, closing the door behind her. She sighed with relief, thankful that everything was finally over. Discord was even out visiting Twilight, she had mentioned something about wanting to run tests on him for a multiple personality disorder. At last, she had some time to hersel-
"CANNONBALL!"
The voice came out of nowhere, and a small furry blur came barreling down from one of her cabinets and landed in a perfectly positioned plate of jello which had been set underneath. Fluttershy yelped and peeked out from under the table she'd dived under to see what had infiltrated her personal space.
Of all things, a chipmunk was climbing out of the gelatin, cheered on by two companions still standing on the endtable from which the first had leaped.
"Ten out of ten!" The fatter one encouraged.
"Ten? Really?" The taller one standing next to the fat one sounded less enthused. "You're giving him a false sense of accomplishment." He looked downwards in disapproval. "Your dismount was completely off, and your landing was terrible. Four point five, at best."
The one in the gelatin glared upwards at the other two. "That was at least a seven!"
Fluttershy squeaked. Talking chipmunks were in her house. She didn't know whether to be frightened or awestruck. She was leaning towards a combination of both. 50/50, preferably, that way one of her emotions wouldn't feel left out or jealous of the other ones. 
"Um, excuse me," Fluttershy said. "Can I help you? Who are you?" She asked quietly, trying very had to be polite about the intrusion. This wouldn't have been the first time that she'd found an unexpected houseguest, it happened more than she cared to admit. But especially after being so busy all day with Stitch, she had really wanted some time to herself.
"Theodore!" The fat one said cheerfully.
"Simon," the taller one replied, before pointing downwards. "And Alvin is the one making a mess down there. I TOLD him it was impolite, but he won't listen."
"I'm not making a mess!" Alvin complained. "i'm redecorating." He pointed at Fluttershy accusingly. "You have horrible taste. Not even a record player."
Fluttershy's ears pinned. "I do? Oh, I'm so sorry, I-" She blinked. Well, at least a couple of chipmunks couldn't possibly cause as much trouble as Stitch had. She was sure of that. "Now wait just a minute, you can't just come in here and start ordering me around! Um... this is my house!" She began to stomp her hoof down, but wound up setting it down ever so slightly. "Stop that at once, Alvin, I-"
The rodent in question continued his hyperactive shenanigans, climbing up onto the couch and evidently preparing to leap from it into the jello again.
"Alvin, I'm warning you, I-"
The chipmunk jumped, landing in the jello again and making an even larger mess, only to infuriate Fluttershy to the point of yelling. She really didn't like to yell, but she had no other choice.
"ALVIN!"


> Epilogue 2: The Rarity Ending
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	With the rest of the group still tending to the Stitch issue, Rarity had left prematurely with her sister following alongside. It had been a fairly close shave, but the two had made a promise to each other not to speak of Sweetie Belle's unusual condition unless absolutely necessary. The other ponies didn't need to know, they wouldn't understand. Rarity leaned down to nuzzle her younger sibling, and gave her a nudge.
"Go play now, and stay out of the basement. There's dust and moths and all sorts of horrible things down there," she warned. "Nothing that you need to be getting yourself into."
Sweetie Belle ran off to do whatever it was that she did, and Rarity continued her work. She had made mention several times of an important parcel due to an important client, but had made no mention of what it was or who it was for. All part of the deal with its benefactor, she did not speak of it and thus retained exclusive seamstress rights, as well as a sizable commission..
The sun passed lower in the sky, and with only an hour to spare, Rarity finished. She looked down at the work in front of her, fanning herself with a scarf. She never did find out exactly what had happened with Stitch until after the fact, but that was alright. She was a mare of business, and business took priority. 
Rarity had only a few moments to herself  before the front door chimed, and she quickly folded the clothing she'd been repairing and placed it in a box. Only then did she finally retreat to the front counter.
A stallion stood there, fairly neutral in color, a wide grin plastered on his face. He had only been in here once or twice before, every time leaving as mysteriously as the time before it. Rarity tended not to ask questions, because she knew he didn't like to give answers.
"Is it finished?" He asked.
"A lady always keeps her word," Rarity assured him, and floated the box into his saddlebags. "If you could just sign this document of receiving, our business here will be concluded." She was rather adamant about this, especially since the last few times the stallion had paid and left without any form of documentation.
"Of course," he said kindly, paying the rather substantial bits that were due, and scribbled quickly on the form. He nodded his head, and made a quick exit for the door.
Rarity scanned the document, and barked her disapproval at him. "Hold it right there!" She demanded.
To her surprise, the stranger did just that.
"Must you whine?" He asked.
"I'm not whining, I'm educating!" Rarity insisted. "There is a certain way that certain things must be done, otherwise the entire economy would fall into anarchy. See here, All you had to do was sign your name, so that I may have proof that you recieved your parcel. NAME, darling. Not occupation. Even so, what you wrote was hardly adequate. All you wrote was-"
"Doctor," the stallion replied patiently.
"Yes, but that isn't hardly fitting at all, now is it? Doctor of what? Or IN what? Doctor who?" Rarity asked.
The stallion just grinned. "That's the question isn't it? Thanks for the patch up as always, but very busy, must run. Perhaps I'll take you with sometime, who knows? Allons-y!" With that, he charged out the door.
Annoyed, Rarity delicately circled around the counter, then charged after him. "Now wait a moment! It's horribly uncouth  to just walk out on a lady like tha-" She paused, finding herself talking to an empty street. Several passing ponies looked at her in curious wonder.
Rarity sighed. "I really hate it when he does that," she muttered, and turned to go back inside, the door closing behind her. Upstairs, Sweetie Belle called downstairs from her room, where she had been busy coloring. 
"Rarity? Who was that?" She asked curiously.
The older sister looked out towards the street. "We may never know, Sweetie Belle. We may never know."
> Epilogue 3: The Applejack Ending
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Applejack had finally returned home after the adventure with Stitch and the boat from space. She stopped by the clubhouse on her way to the farm, to check on her little sister, but found it empty. Nothing unusual there, the fillies didn't exactly live at the clubhouse. She had instructed the trio to return home, which was something she had done many times before, and as such knew that they tended to get distracted and didn't always make it home on time. Apple Bloom surely remembered the grounding she had received the night that she'd gotten home from Zecora's past curfew.
Pushing the door to the farmhouse open, Applejack sighed as a relief of cooler air splashed across her face. A welcome change from the heat outside. "Apple Bloom? Y'all up here?" She hollered, a bit worried that she would not receive a reply.
"Up here!" Apple Bloom's voice chimed.
"Me too!" Sweetie Belle yelled.
"Me... uh... three!" Scootaloo added.
Sighing with relief, Applejack shook her head. "Fillies," she muttered, and went to lay down for a bit until the next round of chores began.
Upstairs, the Crusaders were drawing in a circle, having made quite a mess with crayons and papers littering Bloom's bedroom. Scootaloo was hunched over her drawing, while Sweetie Belle craned her head, trying to see.
"Come on, Scoots, lemme see your OC!" the unicorn chimed.
"No way, it's done yet!" Scootaloo protested.
Apple Bloom held up her her paper, revealing a fully grown green earth pony mare, dressed in a cape and mask.
"Whoa, who's that?" Scootaloo asked?
"This here's Paint Splash, she goes around t'torn down borin' grey buildings and brightens the world by addin' colors to em!" Bloom exclaimed.
"That's exciting!" Scootaloo said.
"I'm pretty sure graffiti is illegal," Sweetie Belle squeaked.
"I'm pretty sure your face is illegal," Scootaloo teased.
Sweetie Belle held up hers, while Scootaloo continued drawing. She had an blue and red unicorn mare, dressed in a remarkably sparkly outfit. "Mine's Star Dust, she's a travelling magician!"
"Like Trixie?" Bloom asked.
"Kind of, except she doesn't suck," Sweetie said, so suddenly that Scootaloo choked on a fit of laughter. "She goes around Equestria performing for all the children with her amazing magic! But she can't become professional because she's afraid of crowds. Now come on, lemme see your OC, Scoots!"
Scootaloo held up her drawing, which wasn't as good as the others. "Mine is Empress Overlord President DeathWing, she's a red and black alicorn that's married to Dusk Shine and-"
Scootaloo was unable to finish, as Apple Bloom tackled her to the ground, a hoof at her throat. 
"NO." demanded the earth pony.
Sweetie Belle tore up the drawing. "We went over this," she said sternly. "Don't be THAT friend, Scootaloo."
Scootaloo sighed. "You guys just can't think of anything original," she complained, to which both of the other Crusaders glared at her. 
"Ah think somepony's Scootin' for a Bootin'," Apple Bloom warned.
Scootaloo threw up her hooves. "Alright, I'll try again! I'm just not good at this! I hate making these namby pamby drawings! I want to be outside, doing tricks and flips!"
"Maybe we should stop making our OC's for now and try getting our cutie marks again," Sweetie Belle offered.
Apple Bloom nodded. "That's a great, safe idea!"
"How about... oh, I know! Sailors!"
"Nah," Scootaloo countered. "We tried that already. Besides, I never wanted to be a sailor. I wanted to be... a lumberjack!"
Apple Bloom's eyes widened. "Hey, yeah! Ah'll get the chainsaw!" She bolted out of the room.
"Wait for us!" Her friends called, and raced after her.
"Cutie Mark Crusaders LUMBERJACKS! YAY!"
> Epilogue 4: The Pinkie Ending
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Stitch rocketed towards the sky, faster and faster, the solar beam just enough to cause a few ripples of light around the windows. Unlike the first time it had happened, his confidence grew, rather than his uncertainty. He continued to push the ship higher and faster, until even the alicorn beside it couldn't keep up any longer.
Celestia fell back, her horn still glowing, but not able to maintain velocity with the ship.
"It's working!" She called.
Stitch pulled the throttle as hard as he could, and the colors accelerated, wrapping around the windows. There was a
bright flash of light, and a rainbow rippled across the sky in its place.
***
Within the confines of the spaceship, it was a different story entirely. Stitch was in his usual piloting position, brimming with confidence as he watched the bright colors obscure the windows, just like last time. There was a magnificent jolt, though that didn't phase him much, and the rainbow began to fade away, revealing a familiar, expansive starfield instead.
Stitch cackled with delight, and flung the ship towards the nearby blue and green planet, eager to return home. He'd been gone for almost a day, and surely the others he'd left behind would be worried about him. He broke into the atmosphere with his usual display, and flew towards the familiar island which he'd flown to so many times before. After that it was simply a matter of landing the spaceship and hiding it again, which didn't take too long. He was rather skilled at hiding things, and ran towards the beach once satisfied.
Stitch ran quickly towards the house, his mind already trying to come up with alternate believable scenarios as to why he'd been gone for so long. He bolted into the house, slamming into The Girl, who was playing with a doll in the hallway.
"Hi Stitch!" She said cheerfully. "Back already?"
Stitch's ears pinned. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. Okay, wasn't expecting that.
"What's the matter? You look guiltier than a vampire at a blood bank. But you were only gone for an hour," The Girl said. "Did you get kidnapped and replaced with an evil twin? Or a good twin? Or did you get into trouble again?"
The alien just grinned. "Stitch? Trouble? Never."
***
Back outside, hidden under debris and branches, the spaceship was cooling down from its extensive journey. It was built for space travel, certainly not for random dimension jumping. The engine was cooling down, and to anyone who might happen to see it at that moment, it appeared empty and abandoned. Far from it.
Nothing happened for a good number of minutes, and the hatch popped open. A bright pink head emerged, large eyes carelessly closed underneath a blindfold. "Ninety eight, ninety nine, one hundred!" She giggled loudly. "Gummy is never ever EVER going to find me in here," she said excitedly, and whipped off the blindfold. She frowned almost instantly, a strange emotion for her. "...Where IS here?" She asked, stumbling out of the spacecraft. She honestly wasn't even sure how she'd gotten there, she'd started to return home for a bubble bath, realized she'd left one of her favorite accordions in the spacecraft by accident, and rushed back for it. The spacecraft had moved while she was in there, and she'd hit her head. Huh.
Pinkie bounced down what appeared to be a well worn trail, confused yet intrigued as to where exactly she was. On one hoof, a new place meant new friends, and she was always up for that. But if she was lost then Twilight might be sad, and she couldn't make one of her friends sad! Pinkie heard voices coming from a distance away, and approached them, perhaps they'd have answers.
"And then she had the NERVE to ask me how much my bike cost, as if she'd ever be able to afford something like this in the first place,"
"What a jerk," another voice was saying.
Pinkie bounced towards the voices, rounding a corner in the path, and stopped dead in her tracks. Which, admittedly, was something that was rather impressive. She found herself face to face with a redheaded girl on a bicycle, each looking at the other as if the other was the strangest thing in the world.
"What the heck is THAT thing?" The girl asked.
"The colors hurt my eyes!" Complained another girl behind her.
Pinkie grinned. The creatures looked similar to the descriptions that Twilight had given after coming back from that mirror place. "Hi!" She said cheerfully.
The girls screamed. "It talks!"
Pinkie found this offensive. "Of course I talk, why wouldn't I talk? I mean if I didn't, then I'd be quiet, and and if I was quiet, then I'd be boring, and that's not fun at all! And who wants to be NOT fun? Then my name would be Pinkamena Boring Pie, and I'd have to give parties about the weather and how impressive my new coffee table is and what kind of tea everypony likes, which is TOTALLY dull, but-"
The redheaded girl groaned. "She never STOPS talking. And she looks like a horse." She pointed at Pinkie accusingly. "You're a weird little talking horse."
"Yeeeeeeeeah!" The pair behind her echoed. 
Pinkie was unphased. "Do you like cupcakes? Cause I like cupcakes, but I like the chocolate ones more than yellow, I mean l like the yellow ones too, but only if they have sprinkles on them, so-"
The girl interrupted again. "You look a lot like that blue thing the weird girl has, only not as ugly. You're coming home with me," she said snobbishly. This pink horse thing was totally better than that stupid blue dog, and it didn't drool all over the place either.
Pinkie considered this for a moment. "Oki doki loki," she said after a moment. "But I gotta get home soon, my friends will be super duper worried."
The redheaded girl smirked. She could totally make the weirdo jealous now. She wheeled her bike back towards her house, with Pinkie following. After all, how much trouble could a little pink horse be?
	 
> Epilogue 5: The Dashie Ending
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Rainbow Dash looked up at the sky, squinting in the morning sunlight and trying to see through the clouds. It was a few days following Stitch's departure, and she'd been rather plagued by how aggressive she'd been about the whole thing. She'd apologized to both Fluttershy and Twilight already, who both said they understood, although Twilight still looked fairly unconvinced. Rainbow suspected she was still slightly sour about the latest Daring Do novel accidentally being caught on fire. A lot of things had been catching on fire lately, for no particular reason. Heck, just yesterday some little colts train had burst into flames right in front of him. Poor kid.
A loud motorized buzzing noise hovered in the air nearby, bringing Rainbow out of her thoughts and back to reality. She looked affectionately at the tortoise suspended in the air by machinery, and made a mental note to stop procrastinating. But she could do that tomorrow.
"Want to get ice cream, Tank?" She asked. What kind of ice cream was a ridiculous question to even ask. Rainbow Bridge, every time. The tortoise just grinned, which Rainbow took for a yes, and the two made their way into Ponyville. Tank had never been an extensive conversationalist. She passed several vendors, most of whom were just getting their day started, but one was already closing and packing up. Unusual.
The pegasus flittered over to him, scratching her head in confusion. She was pretty sure this stallion sold corn chips, which honestly weren't all that big a thing with the residents of Ponyville.
"Uhm... it's a little early to be closing up, isn't it?" She asked, trying not to sound rude.
The stallion jumped at the sound of her voice, and quickly calmed himself. 
"Oh, it's just you, Rainbow Dash. You'll never believe the kind of day I had!"
Rainbow Dash tried her best not to look confused. It wasn't even ten in the morning yet. What could possibly have happened?
"Try me. I've seen some strange things." To date, fighting clones of herself while watching even more of said clones fight each other was probably at the top of that particular list. 
"Some newcomer I'd never seen before. Blonde mane, hunger like I've never seen. Him at this little rat thing just completely cleaned out my stock of imported nachos! Can't complain, made my bits, but I've never seen anypony eat so much." He shuddered.
Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Sorry, pal. Good for you, but never heard of him. Come on, Tank." She made her way to the frozen foods kiosk, and ordered a bowl of vanilla for Tank, who buried his head in it hardly before the bits had hit the counter, and Rainbow Bridge for herself. 
The pegasus sighed, glad things had gotten back to normal. Or at least about as normal as could be expected in Equestria. She was just about to bite into the melting prism of deliciousness when a bright green bolt flew out of nowhere and splattered her treat all over the ground. And all over her face. Somepony was laughing hysterically.
"Everypony, freeze, and none of you get hurt!"
Rainbow Dash's wings flared open in agitation, staring at the wasted remnants of ice cream on the ground.
She didn't know who or why. But this meant war.

> COMING SOON: Six Two Six Two
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	
SNEAK PEEK

The five ponies were gathered around a table in the Library. Twilight and Rarity on one side, Pinkie and Fluttershy on the other. Rainbow Dash was flying restlessly in the air overhead, unable to sit still. Nothing new there.
"So why did you have to call this meeting anyway?" Rainbow Dash complained. "Something is threatening Ponyville, big whoop. That happens all the time. We go in, I give them a taste of blue justice, BAM!" She punched the air in front of her. "We get out, we're home in time for dinner."
Fluttershy peeked out from under the table, Rainbow's sudden exclamation had caused her to jump. "I really don't think it's that-"
"It's not that easy!" Twilight interrupted. "We all read the Security Report. Whatever it is, this thing attacked Princess Celestia, and even SHE couldn't handle it."
"Do we even know what we're up against?" Rainbow asked.
"Something ghastly, I've no doubt," Rarity said, accenting her point with a toss of her mane.
Twilight continued. "I've narrowed down our options using graphs and pie charts-"	
"OOOOH! What kind of pie charts? Blueberry? Raspberry? Apple? Coconut? Oh! Oh! I know! Blackberry!" This exclamation came from Pinkie, who had sudden perked up.
Twilight facehooved. "No, just no, Pinkie. AS I was saying, our best chance of success may hinge on doing something that none of us are going to enjoy very much."
"Please tell me it doesn't involve going to the DMV, they've SUCH horrid attitudes there," Rarity whined.
"...No." Twilight said. "We need Stitch."
Rainbow Dash stared at her. "You have to be kidding right? After all the work it took to get rid of him the first time? How are even supposed to get to him? He crossed the dimensional barrier, remember? It's not like any of us can just go over there and get him."
Twilight sighed, and very slowly her gaze wandered across the table, locking onto someone she'd desperately hoped she wouldn't have to use again. "That's not necessarily true," she said.
In the middle of chewing on her mane, Pinkie stared back.
"...What?"