As much as I enjoyed being a human, I felt way more comfortable as my filly self. We all three appeared at the same alley that I started the mission in, me landing straight onto the crate. Gabriel had fallen into a bush and Rayden was still on his hind legs, but they both looked completely different.

Rayden had the same mane color, but it slid and spiked down his pony neck now. He had a blue fur coat with a rectangular muzzle, a large chest and four powerful legs, now with hooves instead of hands and feet.

Zaanne and Gabriel rolled out of the bush, still laughing histerically. They kept the mane, now curling and poking down to their shoulders. The colors filed themselves in order, now with blue and yellow in the middle of forest green. The muzzle was more curved. Their fur was a light green/aqua, with a slight shade of blue in the light. The crystal hung dimly on the pony's chest, now the same size as mine, but still with a leather cord.

They both had wings, extending their body length outward on both sides, unlike mine. When they had gained proper poise, Gabriel looked out of the corner of the alley, holding back joyful giggles. "Ponyville?"

"Yeah, it's not much compared to Canterlot. That's where the princesses live."

"Tia and luna." Rayden hopped onto the crate and looked down on the town. "Ponyville is bigger than on T.V."

"What's that?"

"A computer, but it only plays movies." Gabriel explained. It sounded about as obsurd as karate aliens.

We trotted out of the alley. Nopony was around, though it didn't seem like a lot of time had passed. The sun was about 3/4ths down thanks to Celestia's magic. My scooter had apparently came with me, sitting idly in the alley. The only noise was the trees and bushes rustling and a distant commotion.

Zaanne asked, "Uh, where exactly in Ponyville are we?"

"The estate area, where most of the ponies live, at least, the ones that don't live at work." I took a stick and drew a quick map in the dirt.

"We are there," I said, pointing at the eastern part. "Most of the ponies are probably off for dinner there" I poked the spot where the food areas are, including Sugarcube Corner, in the center of town.

Gabriel looked down at it and frowned. "I need a full map. Ship?"

It responded. "You two depleted too much energy, with the fight and teleporting so many beings here. I suggest you wait a day or so to refuel. All the reserve energy is being used to keep your blood moving."

Gabriel's face paled. "W-what?"

I explained to him about how he's been awake without his heart beating. He felt his pulse, or tried to. He ended up just punching his neck and chest with his new hooves. "I need to see Twilight." He announced.

"Why not a doctor?" I asked.

"After the hospital stuff, I don't trust another medical facility."

Nobody argued there, so we started our way to the large tree in the southern part of ponyville. Every so often we'd see a pony eye us before trotting off. Whenever we did, Gabriel's head darted in their direction, giving them a smile that made me stand a foot away. "Uhh, why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"That face," Rayden said. "You did that when we met, too."

Gabriel took a second to shake his head and give a straight face. "Oh, sorry about that. The one when I met you was on purpose, this was just from excitement! Meeting Twilight is gonna be awesome!" I doubted it would be too "awesome"; more "educational".

"Why'd you do it on purpose at first?" Rayden asked as we left the housing area, turning down Plum St.

Gabriel cleared his throat and explained, studdering the more he talked. "Well, for the past few years, I've been known to be creepy. Nobody ever wanted to play with me. I never kept a hobby to make any friends with it. Eventually-" he stopped and looked down, picking his words out carefully.

For a happy guy, his face suddenly seemed to sadden. "-eventually, I stopped trying to make friends. I couldn't tell when someone was ever truly happy with my actions, even when they said it." He looked to the pegasi flying about. "They could be terrified and I'd barely notice, thanks to some social disorder I was born with. I'm sure most people have that problem, so I don't complain about it. I'd just sit quietly, giving smiles by being the weird kid that people could laugh at."

"He's a loner", Zaanne summed up. "He doesn't need his memories to know that."

"What about your friends, Jacob and Kenneth?" Ray asked.

Before He could answer, there was a streak of pink, and the two hit the floor so hard that dirt shot everywhere. When the dirt cleared, a pink mare was on their chests, smiling twice as wide as Gabriel was before.

"HI!" Pinkie Pie chirped. "My name is Pinkie Pie! I just saw you three and thought 'hey, I don't know those two!' Then I realized you two must be new here!"

"Pinkie, get off of them, please." I asked.

She obeyed, but felt obliged to hop in circles around the stallions, throwing out words at the speed of sound. "You two are pretty cool looking!" She inspected Rayden like he was a national treasure. "You smell like Rainbowdash! What shampoo do you use?"

"Uhhh, Axe?"

"Woah! You wash with an axe? That must be really hard! That must take a lot of gel to keep your hair intact!" She hopped over to Gabe, completely ignoring Rayden and me. "Hi! Who are you?"

"Uhhh, I'm-" He looked to the clouds, as if trying to remember his own name. "-Zaanne. That's Rayden, by the way."

Me and Rayden gave him a confused look while Pinkie started back from the top. "Zaanne? That's a really cool name! You have awesome hair! Ooo, What's that thing?"

She reached for the crystal on "Zaanne's" neck, but he pulled back. "Please don't touch that! I-It's important to me." He said.

"Oh, ok. Well can you tell me what your cutie mark means? I love hearing those stories!" She hopped to Gabriel's backside and poked it. We all looked and backed away from Zaanne.

"How did you get that?!" I demanded. "You just got here!"

"Huh?" He looked at it and smiled. "I got my cutie mark! What is it?"

It was a good question. At first glance, it looked like a black smiley face with a big nose. But with a closer look, it also looked like the bass note on it's side, the colon being the smiley face's eyes. Without looking at the dots, it looked a lot like a wave as well.

"It's like one of those papers splattered in ink." Rayden commented. "Only abit more direct."

"Wonder what it means." Gabriel thought aloud. The crystal stayed silent, but I could tell the real Zaanne was talking in his head. Gabe's head would twitch to the side, like he was trying to listen to someone that wasn't there.

"How could you not know what your cutie mark means?!" Pinkie asked, looking extremely concerned. "Are you ok?"

It was completely unfair. I spend a year trying to get mine unsuccessfully, and he just hops in with a free cutie mark? He didn't even know what it represented!

"I think so." Zaanne continued walking, still a little too lost in thought to talk.

"He's pretty cool, all mysterious! Just like Mare Do-well!" Pinkie said.

"Weren't you Mare Do-well, Pinkie?" Rayden asked. I'm not sure how he knew that, but he seemed fairly certain.

Pinkie giggled and smiled brightly. "Oh yeah! I guess I was!" She laughed and ran off, leaving us to follow Gabriel. They could see the library over a few buildings now, so I didn't need to guide them. This area was more filled, with a lot of pegasi flying about and earth ponies and unicorns running around, laughing and chatting everywhere.

Gabriel and Zaanne eventually left LaLa Land and started popping off names of ponies they somehow knew, Rayden joining in.

"There's lyra and Bon Bon!" Zaanne yelled.

"It's Roseluck!" Gabe pointed out.

"Hey, there's Derpy!" Ray yelled, pointing to Ditzy Doo.

Finally, after naming half of the ponies on the road, we made it to the library. The tree loomed over me, as usual considering my height, the trunk hollowed out to make a big house inside. The door was left open, which was odd considering the occasional cold winds that swept throuout the street.

I was the first one in, followed by the others. The main room was nothing but a circle of books, most organized through the wooden walls, some on a table in the middle with a star design engraved on it. The only wall without a shelf had stairs cut into it, spiraling to the space that Twilight lives in.

"Cool books." Gabriel said, poking one about flower growing. Rayden looked at the shelves, silently observing the library. I couldn't read his mind, like Zaanne or Gabriel, but he seemed interested in few books.

"May I help you?" A voice asked from the doorway. We turned to meet the violet unicorn herself, standing at the door.

She looked the same as ever. Her purple body was matched with her dark purple nerd hair, with two pink highlights to compensate for all the violet. Her eyes stared down the two stallions quizzically, as if about to start a game of 20 questions. The sparkling star on her flank was still behind the door she entered from.

Gabriel walked to her, holding out a hoof. "Hi, my name is Zaanne. Do you happen to know how to check a pulse?" He asked as if it were a completely typical question.

She blinked her purple cat eyes quickly, looking him up and down. "You don't know how to check your own pulse? I'm sorry, but don't you learn how to do that in, like, fifth grade?"

"I learned how to check my pulse in third, but..." He couldn't really say he was really a monkey from outer space, and didn't know how to do an actual pony's pulse. "I forgot. Please help, I think something's wrong."

She gave him a puzzled look as she shook his hoof. "Well ok then, best spot is right here-" she poked a part of Gabriel's neck.

Immediatly, he laughed and flinched at the same time, backing away. "Sorry about that. Sensative skin, I'll check there." He pressed his hoof to his neck again lightly and waited. Ten seconds went by before he let go, confusion in his eyes. "I don't feel anything."

"You were pressing on the right area," Twilight said, "you should feel it. Did you try, oh I don't know, your chest? That's normally where your heart is."

He tried but shook his head. "Nothing." He looked at a small door in the back. "Mind if I try your pulse machine thing? Just to make sure."

"My what?"

"You know," he started, "the thing in the basement of your library that checks your heart rate and stuff. Isn't that where your labratory is?"

She looked thuroghly shocked. "How do you know about that? Have you been spying on me?!" She looked at the crystal on his neck, ignoring mine for some reason. "There's magic in that, isn't there?"

"Yeah, that's one reason why I wanted to be checked out." He thought through his words then stammered "I-I mean, not like checking a person out as in the creepy way! Like, checking blood and insulin and stuff like that!"

"Insulin?" I asked.

"Material that comes from the pancreas," Twilight and Gabriel said in unison, "it helps regulate the amount if glucose in foods while passing into the intestines."

There was a silent pause between the two before Twilight spoke up. "Books."

"Brother has diabetes", Gabriel explained

"Oh my, type one or two?"

"The bad one, so one I belive."

"Well then," Ray inturupted the nerd fest, "can you record his pulse? We already know what we'll find, so why bother?"

Gabriel looked at the hundreds of books, as if one of them could help him understand the crystal. "I want it on paper. I don't trust myself to give an accurate assumption."

Twilight hesitated before opening the door to the basement, which he went down slowly. "I don't have anything scheduled for the next twenty minutes, I might as well help you strangers. Scootaloo, you should go meetup with your, ah, other friends." She looked at the crystal like it was made of one of Spike's muffins that Applejack poisoned. "I'd be careful with that necklace. If it's dangerous, I don't want you to get hurt."

I promised to be safe and headed out. Rayden followed Twilight down to the basement as well, probably to make sure Zaanne didn't blow anything up again.

I hid behind the library to make sure nopony was looking, then summoned my scooter and rode off to Sweetiebelle's house. So far, all she'd seen is the school blow up, then her two best friends take off to the hospital. She deserved an explanation. Even so, I didn't rush. Without the crystal being needed, it's power was kept to a minimum, leaving me aching and tired. The only things that felt fine were my wings, probably since humans don't have those, so i leaned against the handles and propelled myself forward.

Along the scooter ride, I couldn't help but think through all the crazy things that had happened over the day. Not just the aliens, or the crash. There was an entire world somewhere that nopony knew about. That other planet had knowledge of my world, even though we've never met. When Zaanne had landed in ponyville, he had acted like it was the greatest thing in his life.

Questions bubbled in the back of my head, but there were too many to answer. Where did the aliens come from? What happened to Gabriel that made his heart connect to the crystal? What else is in the other place, besides China and a hospital? When was the last time I looked at the road? Is that a wall?

I didn't register that last question until i was flatcaked to the Carousel Boutique. I hit the wall hard enough to get the attention of Rarity, which I know because of the suprised yelp from inside.

The fashionista looked out of her home/shop and noticed the filly sprawled out against her wall. "Good heavens dear, are you ok?" She came out and gasped loudly. "Why Scootaloo, you're all dirty! Come inside and freshen up this instant!" Apparently getting dirty was more shaking than getting hurt to her.

She was right, of course. I was head to tail covered in dirt and ash. Apparently the crystal didn't clean my body up when I left, though I was sure it did when I last fell asleep. Rarity brought forth a sponge. At first, I thought she was going to neat freak me to death. Instead she wiped off the streak of dirt from my impact point. "Go inside and shower, Sweetiebelle was just about to bathe anyway. I suppose I'll get the last of your friends while I'm out." She then saw the jewel hanging off my chest. "Also, emerald isn't your color. Try amethyst." She left, so I entered.

"She really trusts you and Sweetiebelle to be alone in a fashion store?" Zaanne asked through the rock.

"Why not? We know our way around." I went to the back of the store to enter the bathroom, where Sweetiebelle was setting towels and warming the tub.

"Oh hey Scootaloo!" She chirped. "What's that?!"

She poked at my gem and I moved her hoof. "It's a necklace, obviously. Mind sharing the bathtub?"

She looked me up and down, as If just registering my filth, and then laughed. "Of course you can, Scoots!" She was pretty dirty herself, with twigs in her curly pink mane and brown and sappy splotches mixed in her white fur.

It must be horrible to have to wash yourself when you have white for a body, Zaanne added, you'd be in the bath forever! Is there, like, pony bleach or something?"

Well it's nice to see you're joking around again. Haven't heard much from you since the pillar exploded. I let Sweetiebelle get in first, then followed her in. The water felt amazing against my muscles, and I began to relax immediatly.

"So, how's the school?" I asked, realizing that was a stupid question.

"It... Could be better." She responded, taking the soap.

"By that, you mean we're not having scool tomorow, don't you?"

"Pretty much." She splashed me with some soapy water, which immediatly started an aqua war of epic proportions. She fired soapy missiles using a sponge-on-bar technique, and I pushed her around in the water to knock off her concentration, which is pretty easy with her. I don't know about the rest of the team, but either Sweetiebelle is a little slow (no offence if you are, sweetie) or she has slight ADD problems.

After a few minutes of batting eachother around, we were squeaky clean. But I really didn't want to get out. The water was so warm and the outside was so cold, laziness overtooke me and I slipped my neck deep into the tub. "This day has been really weird."

"Yeah, with the meteor and the fake date planning, you've had a full day, and it's just now 7:30!"

You guys have dinner at 7:30? Really?

"Yeah. It's been a really long day. So, what am I supposed to do for that date?" Bubbles were all through my mane, so I poked them until they popped.

"Well, I'm sure Applebloom would like it if you took her somewhere better than her own home. I still suggest Sugarcube Corner, it'll look beautiful at night!"

"Won't it be freezing at night? It'll be snowing then."

"Oh, it's been snowing for almost three minutes now." Sure enough, when I looked out of the window, white flakes batted lightly against the glass.

Besides, Zaanne said, the colder it is, the closer you get to be to her. For a person who found violence to be a hobby, Zaanne apparently liked to play with emotions just as much.

The idea made my body tingle. I imagined sitting next to AB, keeping eachother warm next to a night's snow glowing orange from a fireplace. For some reason, seeing red fire instead of green sounded delightful. We could talk and laugh and sing and keep close. It was a warmth greater than any fireplace or magic could accommodate for.

"Hello?" Sweetiebelle had to shake me to bring me out of my thoughts. "Scoots to equestria."

"H-huh?" I realized I was still looking out the window, so i slid back in the tub and stared at Sweetiebelle. "Yeah?"

"You spaced out at the snow. Are you ok, your face is red." I eyed the sink's mirror and saw that I was blushing.

"Uhhh, the heat of the tub, that's all." The scene was still painted in the back of my head, along with Zaanne's laughter.

Sweetiebelle studied my face, and after a few seconds she asked, "How important is Applebloom to you?"

"Wh-what?"

She repeated the question, squinting her green eyes at me.

"Oh, she's, you know, a... friend." Thinking through the right words when you're tired and in a hot tub was hard, that's what was wrong.

"Mhmm," she sat closer to me. "you both like mares, right?"

"Hey, if you have a problem with that, you can just say it up front."

She rose her hooves in defence. "All I'm saying is that you're both into eachother... eachother's gender. And you're best friends, like really good friends." She stared at me like I wasn't getting something.

"Soooo we're super best friend?"

I don't know who I heard the facehoof from first, Sweetiebelle or Zaanne.

Ship added. It seems she's implying that you and Applebloom either are or should be in a closer relationship than 'friends'.

What so like, super ultra best friends?

Even Ship had to take a moment to sigh. No...

I didn't get what they were talking about, or why they were pressing the matter so much, so I just set it aside. "Well, if you three aren't going to make sense, I'm just gonna sum this up. I'm taking Applebloom to Sugarcube Corner Wednesday night for apple pie, to figure out how to date so we can give accurate advice to others." That was the plan from the start, but it seemed everypony forgot about it. "Rarity showed Sweetiebelle, so I'll learn by taking Applebloom."

"Wait, 'you three'?" Sweetiebelle looked around the bathroom. "Who else is in here?"

"Uhh, the rubber ducky?" I hopped out of the tub, now completely clean, and grabbed a towel from the rack. Sweetiebelle followed, grabbing her own pink towel with white designs running through it. I ditched the bathroom in enough time to meet Applebloom at the door.

The cuts and bruises on her completely gone now. She looked like she just got out of the bath, like me. In the front door, with the setting sun, her wettened yellow fur glinted amazing shades of gold, like a hundred bits shining under water. Her mane and was like lava spilling downward, pressed against her neck and shoulders and spread with her yellow body. For some reason, she kept the tattered red bow in her mane, even though it wasn't helping much to keep the hair out of her eyes.

She must have been freezing from being outside, but she smiled like it was a warm Summer day. "Hi Scoots! Hey Sweetiebelle!"

The words didn't really process at first. Applebloom looked great in a soaked kind of way. I couldn't help but keep looking at her, setting blinking as a side priority. I didn't respond until a unicorn elbowed my side, which totally wasn't needed. "Ow! Uh, hi Applebloom."

I'm starting to see what Gabriel meant, Zaanne thought, about the age thing.

Huh? I skillfully responded.

Well, you're nine years old, but the way you look at her is like how a regular teenager would look at someone they liked. It's like your maturity is mixed between a nine year old and a fourteen year old. I only half heard him, still a little dazed at something I wasn't sure of.

Applebloom approached, shaking like a dog. Ice cold water slapped our faces, but I didn't care. Seeing her in full health again made me feel warm to the bone. "It's great to be out of the cold!" She looked to Sweetiebelle. "You ok Sweetiebelle? Last i saw of ya was you being tossed like a sack of apples down the school hill!"

"I'm fine", she responded. "Scootaloo planned out the fake date into more detail while we took a bath." She said "fake" like it was foreign to the sentence.

"Lucky, my bath included Pinkie Pie blasting me with the party cannon again, yelling stuff about ships and me needing to be clean for it." We laughed for a bit before she cleared her throat. "So, what's our date gonna be?"

I explained how the day would go. She stole my towel and slumped down on that couch that randomly appeared in Rarity's house, or anywhere that the dramatic unicorn was at. I had nothing against teleporting furniture, so I sat with her. "You like apple pie, right?" I finished.

"I'd love that, thank you." Her accent made "love" sound a lot like "lawve", which was cute in it's own way. She draped half of the towel around me, and i was relieved. It was still pretty cold, and she was great at sharing her warmth.

I pulled my half of the towel over my back. "Hey, if it's a fake date to teach others how to do it, shouldn't it be the day before the day that everypony starts dating?"

Sweetiebelle answered, "it needs to be as real as possible!" I hadn't realized the only one not to sit was her until just then. She stood there, shuffling akwardly in place. "I see you two could use abit of time to, uh, dry off and stuff. I'll go do... Stuff." She trotted off quickly, talking to Rarity's cat, Opal.

We stayed silent for a while before Applebloom spoke up. "When you came to check up on me, I accidentally fell asleep. When I woke up, all my injuries were gone." She studied her forehooves. "What happened there?"

I wasn't sure how to respond, but I gave it my best shot. "Well, the meteor that crashed into our school had some healing powers that hit us, so we healed over time."

"You were just fine when you came in, and you wore that necklace-" She poked the magic crystal that helped me save Gabriel's planet. "That's part of the meteor, isn't it?"

I nodded, displaying the magical ship in my hooves. "It's alive, it talks to you when you wear it, along with some other things I met while you were asleep." Applebloom deserved the truth, so that's what I gave her, even though I originally planned on coming to clear things up with Sweetiebelle. I told her about everything, from the point of the crash to the fight with the aliens Gi and Busy. I spoke about Ship, and Gabriel and his weird friends, Rayden and Zaanne. "They talk to me through the crystal. Gabriel and Rayden are at Twilight's house right now, getting a checkup."

She stared at me like I just fell out of the sky. "That sounds insane! You sure you didn't just bonk your head really hard?"

"She's calling me a bonk to the head?" Zaanne asked through the crystal. "Would you liked to be called that?"

Applebloom didn't move, but her face was dead set on the crystal. "Did it just talk?"

"Technically, the crystal doesn't talk." Ship started. "It amplifys thoughts that are preceded as words, translating and converting them into speech through the generator, like a microphone." Ship's newly acquired voice sounded familiar.

"Spitfire?!" Applebloom stared at Scootaloo in wonder. "You have Spitfire in it?"

"Ah, no. That was the ship, we call it, well, Ship. It does that sometimes. The one before was Zaanne."

I figured Applebloom had no more sense in not running away from the freak with voices on her neck, but she did the exact oppisite. She got even closer, placing a hoof to my chest and looking closely into the crystal. "Wow, they can hear me?"

Something in my chest went "boom" by her touch, which has never happened before. She was so close that I could feel her breath on my chest, tingling my skin weirdly. "Y-yeah, they can." I was aware of the towel still around us, despite that we were now dry. Her hair was back to it's normal self, her tail wagging lightly against mine.

Something in the back of my head was nagging to pull her closer, which was stupid. She was my best friend, why would I want her so close? I shook the urge and hopped off the couch. "Well, I best be checking on Gabriel, see if his appointment with Twilight is done."

Sweetiebelle sighed, as if I were her only company, without the Apple family or Sweetiebelle or a hundred other ponies that would be more fun to hang out with. "Well ok. I'll watch over Sweetiebelle. Take care of yourself!"

I promised I would and ran out the door. Freezing air cooled off my face, which was burning for reasons I couldn't understand. I turned one last time to see Applebloom. She stared back with her beautiful amber eyes, covered in a towel and holding a smile. Her cheeks were slightly red, and her smile quavered, like she was hiding a frown. Then she turned to the white unicorn and started talking to her, letting the door shut behind us.

You know, Zaanne murmered, there's oblivious, then there's just plain stupid.

She's not stupid, Ship snapped. It was odd for him, or her, to show emotion. He considered his outburst and suggested, Ah, try ignorant, maybe.

whatever, she's fairly clueless on Applebloom's feelings.

"I know how she feels!" I responded out loud. "She's sad for some reason, that or concerned. She smiled to me and frowned to Sweetiebelle, so either I upset her somehow or she didn't want to stay with Sweetiebelle."

"To find the answer, you'd have to dig abit deeper." Ship suggested. The sun was almost down now, taking away any heat that I had before. I wished I could set my hooves on fire, but that would cause too much attention. I worked my way down the street as snowflakes danced in the sky, collecting on the rooftops. Sundown brought an amazing orange blanket across the rim of the horizon. I was afraid of slipping on the ice after a snowboarding incident a few weeks ago, so i walked without my scooter.

Even though I felt like a Popsicle trotting through falling snow, I still had the warm image of Applebloom in my head. Us next to a fire, chatting like best friends, or better. I sighed, setting that image aside, and galloped to the library.

Author's Notes:

Special early chapter for valentines day.