June 28, 2013
I unlocked the security chain and swung the front gate open. The wire fence was old but not ancient enough to have the galvanizing flaking off. It had become a little overgrown since the local government had taken over the complex.

The old military radio site had been mostly dismantled. Why the US Navy needed a facility in northern Michigan took a little explaining. Back in the day, it used extremely low frequencies to provide communication around the world. The ELF signals could penetrate water which made them useful for talking to submarines. The transmitting antennas needed to be miles long, which made the otherwise uninhabited forests of the Upper Peninsula a perfect place to build. When the facility was decommissioned in the early 2000’s, the township took possession of the property.

When the gate was open, I walked back to my car and drove through. After moving recently, I had started working for a new office and hadn’t managed to borrow the keys for a government car. I would have to do the paperwork later to get compensation for driving my personal vehicle. Somebody wouldn’t be pleased. My car is not very economical.

The exhaust rumbled pleasantly as I drove slowly into the complex. It was not the first time I had been there, and I enjoyed sightseeing. Only a few buildings remained, but it was interesting to inspect old foundations and try to imagine what might have once stood there.

For various reasons, I was never in the military myself but found employment inspecting government sites. I’m the kind of guy who likes hardware and construction. It’s what I study and what I inspect. Earning a civil servant’s salary is not exactly my idea of a dream job, but at least I find it interesting. They send me all over Michigan, and when someone local can’t be found in another state I cover that, too. My home office used to be down in Lansing, but I just recently moved up north.

At the facility, there was one set of power lines connected up to a functioning pump building. The county used it for water in the event of a forest fire. Three-phase electrical service was required to power the heavy-duty pumps. Those three wires plus one ground wire decorated the electrical poles leading to the building. A transformer was located some distance away.

I stopped the car and got out, the antique doors squeaking in a way that lubrication could never quite fix. Even if an old car is refurbished, it’s still, well…old. With a build date of 1972, my car was older than me. Going around to the front, I leaned on the hood beside the Plymouth badge to double check that all the information on my clipboard was correct.

Date: June 28

Location of site: Republic, Michigan

Name of inspector: Sandy West

Everything seemed right. When I was ready, I put on my hardhat and headed towards the building. The government is big about protective equipment. I didn’t have to wear any kind of uniform, but a t-shirt, jeans, and steel-toed boots were my usual attire for these kinds of jobs. My prescription glasses did double duty as eye protection.

I knew the hatband would screw up my mohawk, but I wasn’t at the office today and didn’t have to look presentable.

But Sandy, doesn’t having a mohawk kind of defeat the purpose of looking presentable in the first place?

There’s no written personal appearance standards. After getting to know me for a while my coworkers eventually stopped caring. Those at the new office were still getting used to the style, and honestly I did kind of enjoy the shock value. Maybe when I turn thirty I’ll be a little more mature. I still have a few years left.

Inside the pump building everything appeared the same as the last time I had inspected it. I checked for leaks, dirt buildup, and wiring flaws. Everything seemed to be in order. I marked the boxes on the clipboard with my pen and turned to go.

Outside, I noticed that the orange paint of my car had taken on an unusual green cast. So had everything else I could see; the pavement, the building, the sky. I looked up. “What the…?”

I was an only child, so I talk to myself a lot. However, considering the strange green-glowing portal in the sky, I think my comment was completely justified.

The wormhole or whatever it was didn’t seem to be at an extreme altitude. There seemed to be clouds behind it, in fact. If asked to give an estimate, I probably would have put it at no more than a few thousand feet above the ground. It wasn’t directly over me, but still too close for comfort. After a moment of astonished staring, I started to run towards my car. Fight-or-Flight had kicked in hard, and my brain decided the latter was a better option.

Something dropped from the emerald portal in the sky. I stopped, my hand on the car’s door handle. I couldn’t tell what was falling towards me, and while my mind was screaming that nothing good ever comes out of wormholes, my curiosity had been piqued so much that all I could do was stare.

The object tumbling through the air was black and had an irregular shape. The way it moved, the way appendages seemed to flail, I thought that it must be some sort of otherworldly creature. Whatever the thing was, it had been accelerating throughout its fall. My eyes tracked its decent, realizing it was going to land a few hundred yards away.

I had forgotten about the power lines. The thing fell into them, coming down lopsided near a pole. There was the thrum of high-tension wire and even in the bright sunshine I saw an arc of electricity. The electrical transformer near the impact site exploded in a shower of sparks and shrapnel. A few of the power lines were severed and dropped to the ground. A small inferno from the blazing transformer surrounded the area.

“Oh my God.” My hands went to my face in flabbergasted emotion. I discovered that my mouth was hanging open and I closed it. I just saw an alien get barbecued. Glancing up, it seemed that the weird green portal had disappeared. The sky was back to normal and other than the burning wreckage nearby everything seemed normal.

I quickly got into the car. Several thoughts tried to cram themselves through my head all at once. I should leave as fast as possible. I should call the police. I shouldn’t go over there and poke it with a stick. Yeah, I like the sound of that plan.

Once again, however, curiosity fought to the forefront of my mind. When was the next chance I might get to see an alien? I could drive by on my way to the gate. Just one look.

I started the engine and put the transmission into drive. Steering clear of the downed power lines, I drove over to where the flames were still licking the ground. A crumpled black form lay among the debris and smoke. It was not like any creature I had ever seen before. My eyes went to part of it that had been torn away. I realized it might be a leg. Green blood had pooled on the ground. The loose limb was shot through with holes which I initially took to be further injury but didn’t see any of that strange blood dripping from them.

Okay, so if it had one leg you would think it would have more, although at the time ideas about symmetrical biology didn’t occur to me. I did a quick count and came up with three more legs that were still attached to the body. There seemed to be bits of other appendages on the body, but I wasn’t sure if they were vestigial or instead had been burned or torn away.

The skin or whatever the exterior was seemed to be divided into limited sections for movement. An exoskeleton, maybe? The black color reminded me of the aliens from Alien. The mouth was a lot smaller, however. As I looked at the rest of the face, it seemed vaguely familiar. The eyes were closed and the expression seemed to be locked in a state of anguish.

It was at that moment I realized that my foot on the brake had brought the car to a stop and I was ogling the thing out the window. I wanted to leave, but it troubled me that something that was obviously unearthly still bore a resemblance to something I had seen before. Exactly what it was escaped me at the moment.

A few more seconds passed. I swallowed hard and put the car in park. It took a little while longer to get up the courage to actually open the door. The heat from the nearby fire was not too intense to withstand, but in terms of danger I was more worried about the mysterious creature. The legs were blunt and the mouth was small. It didn’t look like it possessed many natural weapons. Well, maybe that horn—

Oh God, it’s a changeling.

That revelation hit me harder than I expected. Other than the two episodes of My Little Pony and numerous pieces of fan art, I had never seen a changeling before. Of course not; they’re fictional!

Well, obviously not. Either that or I was seeing things. This one wasn’t animated like a cartoon, so that lent credibility to the not-crazy evidence. I searched for clues to prove things one way or another. The body, the features…it may have been missing the delicate mane, wings, and tail, but after a fall from the sky I could understand that.

As I took in the overall shape of the body, face, and horn, a strange thought occurred to me. This wasn’t a normal changeling. Much like the ponies, the leaders were taller, more statuesque. Was I looking at a queen? The Queen?

I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but the only other option was that I was hallucinating. I suddenly had a lot of questions about a lot of things besides sanity; metaphysics, Lauren Faust’s control of the universe…

None of that told me what I was supposed to do now. I stood beside the car looking down at the injured changeling. I thought it (she?) moved slightly, breathing.

Should I try to help? That leg was—well, it was freaking torn off. I don’t know how it could have been a worse injury. But what could I do? I knew basic first aid, but only for people.

But did I really want to assist a changeling? They had tried to take over Equestria. Or was I assuming too much? Just because a character from a cartoon I watched had materialized on Earth didn’t mean that they were just as guilty as their Flash-animated counterpart.

Maybe my faith was terribly misplaced or maybe I’m too nice for my own good. I had to get the changeling some help. I started forward but stopped. Despite my earlier conviction, I really didn’t want to touch anything like that.

Turning around, I popped the trunk and grabbed a pair of gloves. I also pulled out a travel blanket and unrolled it. It looked like there would be just enough to wrap the creature.

It was not an easy task to get the unconscious changeling onto the blanket. I grasped the back legs using the holes to give my gloved fingers a little more traction and pulled until the torso was more or less in the center of the blanket. Grimacing, I picked up the loose leg and placed it securely with the rest. It’s a good thing the blood was green or my feelings of nausea would have been worse.

I tried to be gentle, but there really was no easy way to lift a limp body. I estimated the weight to be somewhat less than me but still fairly hefty. One leg (still attached, thank God) slipped out of the bundle and dangled towards the ground. If standing, the changeling would probably be about eye level with me. That put a few more points towards it being someone (somepony? somechangeling?) who had a leadership role.

The trunk of a Plymouth Valiant is just about the right size to carry a stricken changeling. I didn’t feel good about that, but better than riding in the back seat and bleeding on the upholstery, or worse, being seen. Not everyone is a brony, but regardless of that the government would probably still want to keep things under wraps. Trust me. I work for them.

Closing the trunk lid, I got back in the driver’s seat and took off. Should I drive speedily to get help more quickly or slow to avoid hurtful bumps to my passenger? I picked somewhere in between those two velocities.

I didn’t stop to lock the gate. That reminded me that I’d dropped the clipboard at about the same time that I saw the portal in the sky. Couldn’t be helped. Today was Friday, and work wasn’t expecting my report until Monday so I had the weekend to fix things. Either way, that was a minor problem compared to the one I had just taken on.

The winding road took me towards the town of Republic, which was really more of a collection of dispersed houses than an actual establishment. The house my wife and I had just moved into was as isolated as any of the rest and I probably wouldn’t be seen while moving an extraterrestrial inside.

I couldn’t really go to the hospital. They weren’t equipped to deal with nonhuman patients. In fact, there really wasn’t anyplace that could truly help. I had to start thinking about who I should call to take the changeling off my hands.

My workplace would be no help. We just did paperwork related to old facilities. I had plenty of friends and family in the military, but didn’t know if any of them could do something. If they were cleared for super secret alien stuff, then they couldn’t have told a civilian like me so I could keep their number on file in case anything like this happened. And so, inadvisable as it was, I decided that going home was the best thing to do. At least that way I could try to get some answers from the internet.

There was a thought—this whole situation sounded like fanfiction. Trust me on this; I’m a writer. In fact, what had just happened reminded me a little of this one series, where ponies fell from the sky. If he had anything to do with it, the author responsible for the series creation was going to get a piece of my mind.

I set the changeling down on the unfinished floor and pulled back the blanket. It—she, I had decided—was still out cold and barely breathing. Some more blood from various places including the torn leg dripped through the blanket. It was a good thing we were still fixing the house up and the main flooring hadn’t yet been installed.

Taking a breath, I paused to think. That was a big mistake. My earlier purposefulness began to bleed away into fear. I really had no idea how to handle this situation. If this really was Queen Chrysalis, then I was looking at an extremely powerful magical being, possibly even more powerful than Princess Celestia. Even as strange and improbable as that sounded, I didn’t want to take any chances.

Ducking into the bedroom, I opened the drawer of the bedside table and pressed my fingers to the electronic lock of the pistol safe. It opened with a beep and I picked up my gun. Just because this was a perfect excuse to be paranoid, I did a brass check and also dropped the magazine to make sure it was full. Bright .45 caliber cartridges were in abundance, and I breathed a little easier.

Say what you want, a 1911 pistol just simply works. Here’s a tip, though: don’t buy a gun made of stainless steel like I did. It’s too shiny for its own good and fingerprints get everywhere.

I went back out into the main room where Chrysalis still lay. Putting the handgun down beside my computer, I grabbed the mouse. Internet searches failed to reveal anything related to the visitor I had discovered. It probably would have been impossible to find something relevant among everything else pony-related all over the ‘net. I tried a few somewhat more targeted searches. Even checking Twitter for up-to-the-minute coverage didn’t turn up anything.

I chewed my lip for a moment. There was a large network of people I could contact from places all over the world who might be able to give me specific answers to my questions. All I had to do was ask. After a little more consideration, I decided to enlist their help.

My favorite ponyfiction website had been good to me. I’d met all sorts of people on the site, and for the most part they were nice, friendly people. What I was about to do might freak them out a little. Either that or they would think I was drunk again. Still, I needed information.

I posted a blog explaining where I was, the fact that something strange had happened, and that I really needed to know if other strange things were happening. I kept my wording purposefully vague, not wanting to reveal too much in case the government had for some reason decided to monitor me. Funny how an unexpected guest can bring out the paranoia in you.

My typing hadn’t been the most clear. I usually prided myself on solid spelling and grammar, but sacrifices must be made in times of crisis. I waited a few minutes, thinking about my guest. If she really was covered with an exoskeleton, I wondered if my handgun bullets would penetrate. Something more powerful, like an assault rifle, might do the trick. In moving, however, some stuff still hadn’t been transferred to the new house. My AR-15 was one of those items.

The first few comments on my blog started to come in. I had a mild panic attack when blackouts across the country and dead zones of no communication were being reported. It took a few seconds to realize that the post had probably been made by someone who thought I was playing a character. Still, it gave me something new to check on Twitter.

The rest of the comments were split about half and half with people thinking I was starting an apocalypse roleplaying blog and people who reported nothing strange happening. I gradually began to relax my alert posture, but grew more troubled. Okay, so ponies dropping out of the sky wasn’t happening worldwide. Fanfiction was not prophetic. The global population was apparently blissfully unaware.

However, I still had a problem. I was the only person in the country this had happened to. Why, exactly, was a question I couldn’t find an answer to. Maybe someone up there—God, Celestia, Dr. Manhattan—was screwing with me.

I didn’t like being a pawn of the universe, but it’s not like I could do much about it. I glanced at Chrysalis again. She was still breathing faintly. I wondered how much longer she would survive in the condition I had found her in. Generally, losing a limb proves to be fatal if not treated. I fidgeted a little. It felt like I needed to do something for her, but what? Maybe handing her over to the government would at least keep her alive.

If only she would wake up so I could ask her how to treat a changeling’s wounds. That is, if we spoke compatible languages. If she didn’t see me as a threat and attack. If she didn’t use freaky mind control on me.

Once again, I was troubled by how much I didn’t know. I could just go by the gospel of the show, but Chrysalis was only in two freaking episodes. That still didn’t tell me loads about changelings. Apparently she was also in the MLP comics, but I had never read those. There was another point; with all the different takes on her character from the show to the comics to piles of fanfiction, which one was correct?

There was the noise of a large diesel pickup truck driving up to the house. My wife, Maria, had arrived. A sudden spike of panic went through me. She knew I was a brony, but I couldn’t guess how she would respond to the comatose MLP villain lying on our floor. Or the travel blanket I had ruined.

I got up from the computer, shoving the gun into my belt behind my back. It was not the same thing as a holster, but it would have to do. Until I believed Chrysalis wasn’t a threat, I wasn’t about to let down my guard.

There came the sound of Maria’s key in the lock of the front door and then I heard her come in. Her steps came down the hallway and she stopped suddenly in the doorway. Her eyes widened as she took in the green bloodstains on the blanket, the changeling lying on top of it, the dismembered leg nearby, and the frazzled look on my face.

Maria’s eyes went to me, questioning, incredulous, and more than a little displeased.

I raised my hands. “I can explain.”

Author's Notes:

Hello, and welcome to a nice new story! I hope to have it completed at about the same time the convention is. See you there!

Disclaimer: This is a fictional story. Lots of parts (i.e. my personal details) have been changed. Don't take it as TNaB gospel. And I'm hopefully not this narcissistic in real life.

Although they aren't mentioned by name to avoid FIMFiction's meta restrictions, I'd like to thank Pen Stroke, PiquoPie, and TheSlorg for allowing me to use bits of them in this story. They're cool people - go check 'em out.