After leaving the workshop, Inhio walked towards his home at a much faster pace than with which he walked to the workshop.

"Uggh..." a voice came from the ball. "That one really was quite the charmer."

"Tell me about it," Inhio agreed without hesitating. "I don't believe we've been introduced yet, Miss..."

"The name's Rarity, darling."

"Rarity," Inhio finished his previous sentence. "You sound like a real lady. I have a feeling I wouldn't be lying if I said that diamonds are your best friend."

Rarity laughed quietly without opening her mouth. "My best friends are right here, with me, my dear," Rarity happily replied and smiled at her friends.

"Yeah, she's a real sucker for gems." One small sentence from Rainbow Dash completely devastated Rarity's composure.

"Twilight, if you don't keep your silence spell on that mare, then Celestia be my witness, I will!"

"He he he," Inhio laughed quietly. "Funny. I had imagined that Applejack would be the one you'd have trouble getting along with."

"Oh, believe me, Sir Inhio. Me and Applejack have had quite a few arguments along the way."

"That's good," Inhio quickly replied, confusing the ponies.

"Pardon me, Sir, but how is that a good thing?"

"You're still friends, aren't you?"

"Yeees..." Rarity gave an unsure reply. "But wh-"

"Being alike isn't what makes good friends, it's being able to accept each other's differences that keeps a relationship together," Inhio explained. "If you can stay good friends despite the fact that your opinions differ in almost every situation, then it means that your friendship is practically unbreakable."

Rarity and Applejack looked at each other with surprised and confused expressions, but their faces quickly put on warm smiles after that.

A lasting moment of silence claimed the air. Inhio heard some movement and indistinct whispering coming from inside the ball during this moment of silence.

"So..." Twilight finally broke the silence. "I believe you've met all of us."

"Aren't we forgetting someone?" Inhio seemed quite assured of himself as he asked.

"Umm...no..." Twilight slowly replied after a short moment. "There are five of us in here."

"Come now, Twilight. I took you for someone that knows math quite well. Are you sure there isn't a sixth one that you've forgotten to mention?"

Could he...No...B-But...H-How? She hasn't said a single word since we arrived here, how could he possibly... Twilight wondered. "H-How? How could you have possibly-"

"Damn it!" Inhio shouted. Just as he had planned, he heard that soft voice gasping again. "Aah, there it is. The voice that's gentle enough to tame a wild bear." Although he had just meant it as an expression, Inhio had no idea just how true his words were.

As if the ponies inside the ball weren't surprised enough by the fact that Inhio knew about a sixth presence inside the ball, their eyes opened as widely as possible as soon as they heard him mention her taming a wild bear.

H-H-How!? How is he doing this?! Twilight was shocked to the point where she had almost begun to fear Inhio...What if he was something greater than just what he had told them he was.

"Speak up, shy one. I am not someone you should fear," Inhio encouraged the sixth voice to speak. He heard a few very quiet hoofsteps, but no voice followed them.

As the shy pegasus turned her eyes towards her friend, Twilight, she saw her nod.

"Go on, Fluttershy. Don't keep him waiting," Twilight whispered to her friend.

Nearly half a minute passed before Inhio finally heard her speak.

"My name's Fluttershy," the voice revealed itself too quietly to be identified.

No reply came from Inhio for some time.

"I don't think he heard you," Twilight added.

"I heard her," Inhio interrupted. The moment he heard Fluttershy talking, his mind was swept away into a daydream. He had never heard a voice so beautiful in his entire life. "Fluttershy," he addressed the pony. "Has anyone ever told you that you have a voice beautiful enough for even angels to envy?"

Fluttershy smiled as her cheeks turned more red than ripe cherries. "T-Thank you."

"I would love to hear more about you...I could tell something about the rest of your friends just from hearing them talk, but only because I was already somewhat familiar with voices like theirs, but yours..." Inhio paused for a moment. "I haven't heard anything quite like it before...I'm trying to picture your looks and your lifestyle, but I simply can't see anything," Inhio explained.

"Somebody's in love," Rainbow Dash whispered to Twilight.

Fluttershy overheard her and blushed even more than before. "Well, umm...It's actually just like you said earlier. I tame wild animals. Taking care of the critters of Ponyville is what I do for a living."

Wait...She has actually tamed a wild bear, before? Inhio wondered. "So what kind of animals do you work with?"

"Well, umm...Mostly it's just small ones. I really love those small critters, especially the bunnies, they're just so soft and cuddly, and lovable."

"What about the larger ones?" Inhio asked. He tried his best to inconspicuously find out if she has actually had dealings with wild bears. "Like, what's the largest creature you've ever tamed?" Inhio asked after receiving no reply for a moment.

"Well, umm, I do have a pet bear by my side, but that's about as far as it goes with the big ones," she modestly explained.

"She tamed a manticore," Twilight interjected.

"And a dragon," Rarity added.

"And a ferocious, two-headed dog," Rainbow Dash continued.

"And lets not forget Discord, the living embodiment of chaos and disharmony. The only reason he's on our side now is cause of her," Applejack also added.

"...Wow..." Inhio added after a moment of silence. "That's...impressive."

"That's our Fluttershy for ya," Applejack happily replied.

"If I might ask," Inhio spoke up. "What is your world like? This Equestria...You have dragons, griffons, manticores, hydras and even a living embodiment of chaos and disharmony, and yet, all of you seem so calm, peaceful and gentle in your nature, without even so much as a slight profanity in your dialogues...How do you make all of this work?"

"Well, I suppose it's a lot different in the world you come from, but in Equestria, the two most powerful forms of power are the elements of harmony and the magic of friendship. By staying good friends and remaining true to one another, we have always managed to defeat even the most malevolent foes," Twilight happily explained.

Remarkable. Inhio thought to himself. "And are all the ponies in your world so peaceful? Do you always get along in harmony? Do things like theft, violence and murder even exist in your world?"

"Goodness, no!" Twilight shouted back. "Even if something is ever stolen, the perpetrator is always caught pretty much instantly, but murder?!" Twilight said in shock. "Even the evilest of villains have never dared to murder anypony. That's not something Equestria is accustomed to."

"I see..." Inhio slowly replied.

"Inhio?..." Twilight asked after a short moment.

"Yes?"

"The way you talked about all those things...theft, violence, murder...Is your world?..."

"Umm..." Inhio stopped at the door to his house. "I'll tell you later, we're here."

***

Inhio walked up the stairs slowly, and when he got to his apartment, he walked even slower, pondering on everything he had heard today. Right before placing the ball and pedestal on the table, he took one long look through the window.

The first human on Earth to witness the arrival of another species...that's me. He thought to himself as he placed the ball in the pedestal.

"Right, so...How do I make this work?"

"That shouldn't be too hard," Twilight replied. "There should be something like a switch or button somewhere on the pedestal."

"Ah! Found it!" Inhio replied soon afterwards. "Are you ready for this?"

With firm smiles on their faces, the six ponies looked upon one another and nodded.

"Yes!" the six voices shouted.

"Alright, here it comes," Inhio answered. The ponies inside the ball heard a switch getting flicked, and they knew exactly what it meant.

"Can you believe it, girls? We're actually here!" Twilight shouted in excitement as she started feeling her spirit returning to her body again. "I can already see it! Earth! Humans!"

"Uhh...Twilight?" Rainbow Dash interrupted. "This doesn't look like earth to me," she said as she kept looking at the ground beneath her hooves.

"Wha..." Twilight took a look at the ground and walls and realized that Rainbow Dash was right. "Inhio!" she shouted. "You turned the switch the wrong way! Turn it the other way! Quick, before it's-"

"No," Inhio interrupted, silencing all the ponies for some time.

"Wh-what?" Twilight asked in a bemused tone.

"I said no." Inhio repeated.

Twilight still stood completely dazed for some time, waiting and hoping for Inhio to just laugh and say that he was just pulling her leg...But his tone was too solemn for joking.

Twilight slowly hung hear head. All this time, all this effort, all the searching and planning...All of it just to get stabbed in the back at the very end? There wasn't a moment during her trip when this betrayal would have hurt more than it did now.

Was it all just a dream? Just a very cruel joke that only a human could make? No, it wasn't, that much was clear. Just about everything had already materialized around her...It was already too late to turn things around.

Twilight collapsed from the pain in her heart. With tears pouring down her face, she raised her head and shouted.

"Why?!"

"I'm sorry, Twilight Sparkle, but this can't be any other way...I am so sorry...I wanted to see you no less than you wanted to see me...You may not understand, but believe me when I say that this is for the best."

Inhio's words moved all the ponies. None knew why, but judging by Inhio's voice, none dared to say that he didn't mean what he was saying.

"Goodbye ponies of Equestria...Please, never try to come here again."

"But why?" Twilight asked again.

Inhio took a deep breath.

"I told you about myself...Then you told me about yourselves...Then you told me about your world..."

Inhio fell silent for some time, only to add a few last words after that.

"But I never told you about my world..."

Author's Notes:

It was Fluttershy. I knew what would happen to her if she came here...I simply couldn't bear to see this world tear her apart.

~ Inhio Hellbridge