We went where her horn led us, keeping off the bigger streets as we snuck around in the alleys. It wasn't far at least. The bus coulda just dropped us off, but nooo, everypony has to make a big deal. It wasn't even like she had ugly pony legs.

There was a big fence going left to right, with a few layers of barbed wire on top, and signs. I looked at one 'Warning - Biohazard - Do not approach'. What's with signs that have rules you have to break? I looked to Aiko and back to it. We could hear people beyond it. Pony people. Their hooves were hard to miss, clopping slowly, but it was hard to tell more than that. They weren't close to the fence at all at a guess.

Aiko nodded towards one of the more abandoned buildings beside us. "We should get out of sight, hunker down, and see what I can do."

I moved around the building to the back and hopped up to a windowsill. I gave the window a few tugs, locked. I bounced to the next and the next after that. It wasn't until the sixth window that I hit the jackpot, and it was on the second floor. Good thing I was good at climbing, huh? I slipped inside into the dusty darkness and came down to the back door for Aiko, letting her in and closing it behind her. We had our base. "Here we go. You can do your thing. I'm going to take a peek while you're busy."

She settled to the ground and raised her hooves, using her magic to pluck the boots off of them. "Thank you. I'm sorry, for messing up like that."

I waved at her. "Tweren't nothin. You were doing your best. I mean, sheesh, you've been a pony, what? Not even a tiny bit of time. I can't expect you to be perfect at it." I nodded firmly. "We'll get you galloping on two and four legs in no time at all. But right now..." I tapped my head. "It's time to put that horn to use. You know you're magic, right?"

"Magic?"

"Like, duh, like wizard magic. I mean I have my own kind of thing, but unicorn magic is the straightforward magic kinda magic. You can pick things up, turn things into other things, teleport, all kinds of things."

Her eyes widened. "I can do that?" She raised a hoof, trembling, to touch at her horn. "How? Pinkie, can you show me?"

I frowned a little. "Not that easy, buckerooni. I'm an earth pony." I waved a hoof at her. "So I don't have practice using horns. I just know Twilight looks all serious and then things happen. She has all kinds of books about it, but I didn't bring one of those, sorry. You're going to have to do it the hard way, like a pegasus without a mom around." She looked confused at that, and I grinned. "Jump off something tall and figure out how to fly on the way down. Lucky you, unicorn magic doesn't require falling."

Aiko slipped out of her trenchcoat and set her hat aside, making a little pile before she stretched. "But you at least know about it. You led the whole hospital of unicorns to start using their horns to lift things. Can't you do something like that, to get me to use other magic?"

Huh. I tapped my chin, thinking about how to get her to do any of Twilight's tricks. I really wished I had a magic book! "Well... When you do pick something up with your horn, how does it feel?"

She looked at one of her boots and floated it up into the air. "Feel?"

"Yeah, like you're flexing some muscle I don't have, right? Put it down, pick it up, learn what that feels like."

Aiko nodded and set the boot down, then picked it up. Up, down, up, down. "I think I do feel... Pinkie, you're a genius. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Your madness is just a mask to hide how brilliant you are."

I tilted my head at her. "I'm not mad. I'm pretty happy right now. Feel better?"

She waved a little. "Nevermind that, but yes. This is... going to take a lot of practice, and time isn't something we have in abundance. I'll reach out and see what I can do with the others, get a feel for them. They are chinese ponies, maybe it'll be different."

"Why?" I perked an ear. "We're all ponies, even the ones with two heads or lots of tongues or a thousand legs." She looked skeptical so I leaned in towards her. "You were able to handle the sea horses, and they were from another country too, and a whole new kind of pony. If you can make friends with them, you can make friends with anypony."

"Did I?" She frowned slightly. "You seemed to make friends with them, Pinkie. I couldn't even understand them."

I put a hoof on her shoulder. "You don't understand. If it was just me, they would have run over me like my mirror clones." They peered at me. Of course she didn't know about that. "Look, you're a princess, and you make ponies calm and nice when you're around. They could tell, without words, that you were important and they didn't want to look silly in front of you, so they were more polite than they would have been."

She huffed softly. "That's... good, but not enough. I need to understand them, and talk to them." She suddenly clopped her hooves. "I have an idea. What if I borrowed your talent?"

"Um, you're welcome to, but how?" I tilted my head at her and sat on my haunches.

She shook her head. "Go, see what you can see. I'll be working to answer that. We are tied." She reached for me then, putting a hoof on my chest. "You trust me, right?"

I smiled at her gently. "You're not my princess, but you are my friend, so yes. If you can borrow or share it, go for it." I hopped up to my hooves and made for the stairs. "I'll be scouting. You be good!"

"I won't do anything you wouldn't do."

I giggled. I could get into a lot of trouble. I doubted Aiko would do many of the things I might do. Ascending the stairs, I got up to the top floor and made my way to the roof on the far side of the camp. I pulled up the window and slipped out, clinging to the building and scaling carefully up to the roof.

Pulling myself up, I inched along on my belly as I pulled out some binoculars and peeked out over the fence into the compound. The ponies we heard weren't there anymore? Ah, tents. There were lots of tents, presumably with our precious pony populace punitively penned in.

It was so quiet in there. Nopony was moving except the soldiers, and they didn't go very close to the tents, just looking at them like any of them might explode at any moment. The guards were human. No tails or flicky ears in the whole bunch. I could see a gate on one side, the entrance I figured. It went right to a road, so they could drive right into it with something as big as the bus we were on, if they wanted.

I could see a few towers. There were humans in each one. I think they had guns, but that didn't surprise me. Every soldier I'd seen had a big gun, and a little gun too, just in case the big gun wasn't the right one? The ones in the towers had really big guns though. They were all long, and when the light hit them right, they had a bit that was shiny. I wondered what those guns were for, but I didn't see anything to give me more clues.

There was a sign near the front. 'Baise Camp'. I got the image of a specific kind of pony, translated for me by whatever magic let me understand all the funny languages of the humans. Baise was a kind of pony. That made sense. They did have lots of ponies. I wondered if they were actually Baise or if they were being cute and named them after a local kind of pony.

I felt Aiko. Her presence gently rubbed against me like she was asking to come in. I tucked away my binoculars and ducked down before letting her in.

~Pinkie?~

~Hiya! What's up?~

~Oh good, it worked. I'm not distracting you, I hope?~

~No, I got a good first look at the camp.~

~Good good. Can you come back inside? I want to try something with you.~

~Okey dokey lokey.~

~What?~

~On the way!~

I slipped from the roof and bounced down to the open window, closing it shut behind myself and hurrying back to where I left Aiko. She looked a bit more clear headed and chipper. "Ah, Pinkie, good. Are you ready to try?"

"Try what?" I sat down in front of her. "You're going to try some crazy language magic?"

"Not quite." She smiled a little. "I want to deepen our link, so I can borrow your gift. I know how to reach, and you know what it's like to be reached at. You'll help me get it right, and tell me when I'm doing it wrong. If we can get it right, then we'll be in a much better situation. I'll be a princess, and be able to talk to them, instead of you having to be my translator."

I sat with her, and felt her brushing against me. "It's not enough." She rose and approached me on her delicate hooves. "Is it alright if I get closer?"

"Oh, sure, yeah?" She meant really close. She wrapped her forehooves around me and sank against me as we flopped to the ground. Her presence became that much stronger as she snuggled in on me almost desperately. She pressed and pressed mentally, until something broke, and I could feel everything. I could feel her snuggling me from her side. I could feel her feeling me feeling her. I stopped looking in that direction fast before I got caught up in a loop.

"I can feel it," she softly whispered, wobbling with the powerful rush of our combined sensations. I was about to say how proud I was of her, but I knew she knew, and she knew that I knew that she knew. She collapsed onto me, and we hugged tightly. For a little while, just being that close to her was so much more than enough. We didn't need anything.

"Pinkie?"

"Mmm?"

"Say something in Chinese for me?"

I said a few phrases, like 'Hi' and 'Where's the cake?', which got a giggle out of her.

"I can understand it." She sat up a little, then licked her lips before she said hello in Korean, then again in a language I'd never even heard of before, but my own brain translated it quickly into hello again. "I can do it! I'm doing it!"

Author's Notes:

Aiko can borrow the Equestrian magic of translation, yay! And we've had a peek at the camp. We're ready to do... something...

1: Don our disguises and try to get some info out of the guards.
2: Luna, why do you need to talk right now? We're busy!
3: A wandering patrol notices some activity around an abandoned house, hmm.
4: Reach out and try to communicate with some ponies mentally.
5: Time to incite some rioting!