There was a knock at the door. Scootaloo nearly jumped, and looked at the door, wondering who would be knocking on a door so late.

“Miss Rarity?” she called. She and the other Crusaders were having a Cutie Mark Crusader sleepover at Rarity’s house; Rarity herself was in the upper levels of Carousel Boutique, working feverishly on some new order of dresses- -an occupation that seemed terribly dull to Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom were also higher in the building in one of its bathrooms, attempting to be Cutie Mark Crusader plumbers. They had sent Scootaloo downstairs to get towels, and something called flux if Rarity had any.

There was another knock. It was the middle of the night, though. No one should have been at the door.

“Um,” she called, approaching the door. “I think we’re closed right now.”

“Scootaloo?” said a strange voice from the other side. “I know you’re in there. I can see your heat signature.”

“My what?”

She looked up at the doorknob, and found herself afraid to open it. She even froze for a moment, wondering if there would be an ahuizotl on the other side, just like in her night mares. Shaking her head, she did her best to dispel her fear. Instead, she stepped forward and opened the door.

From the blackness on the other side, she was greeted by a familiar pair of triangle-pupiled eyes. Something was strange, though. Instead of staring down unblinkingly from above, they were staring unblinkingly from a level height.

“Don’t. Laugh,” said D27 firmly, even though his voice was abnormally high.

Scootaloo tried not to, but that only lasted for a moment. Then she started to giggle, and broke into roaring laughter so powerful that she snorted. She then continued laughing to the point where she fell onto the floor, her wings vibrating uncontrollably.

“Of course,” said D27. “I don’t know what I expected.”

“Your just…oh…your just a colt!” she cried. She had not believed it at first, but D27’s form had completely shifted to the size and proportions of a child. He still had the somewhat distorted appearance that everypony had come to expect: the ridge of horns on his head and spine, and the naked tail, but he was tiny and adorable despite his best efforts to make his tiny colt face frown deeply.

“I’m close to forty million years old, I’ll have you know,” said D27.

“But you’re so little! Oh, this is hilarious. Come on! Sweetie Belle and Applebloom need to see this!” Scootaloo became somewhat serious. “She’s been worried about you, you know. It’s been almost a week since you stormed off.”

“I know. Perhaps I should have- -”

“Scootaloo!” drawled an annoyed voice. Applebloom and a soaked Sweetie Belle stepped out from a nearby stairwell, leaving a trail of water behind them. “We really need the towels!”

“And the flux,” said Sweetie Belle. “Whatever that is.”

They both stopped, seeing D27 standing in the doorway, and for a moment they just stared. Then they burst out laughing.

“Yes, I know…very funny,” said D27 sarcastically.

“Look at you!” cried Applebloom through tears of laughter. “You’re D2.7!”

The others did not seem to understand the joke, but D27 through it was actually mildly clever. Still, he did not much like being laughed at. He supposed he deserved it, though. His current state was the cost of his own hubris and failure, and on some level, he believed he needed to be laughed at, to convert his fearful state into one that was at least humorous to somepony.

When they calmed down, Applebloom finally managed to ask what had happened.

“There was an…accident,” said D27. “I underestimated some things, and…well, this.”

“You’re so small,” said Sweetie Belle.

“I’m actually slightly larger than you,” retorted D27.

“But what happened?” said Applebloom. D27’s eyes narrowed. She was more perceptive than the others; Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle treated D27’s form as a joke, but Applebloom seemed to recognize that it was at least on some level a dangerous medical condition.

“It is a phenomenon called mass loss,” said D27. He tried to imagine how he would word the description of his condition without stating that it was a result of him having failed to assassinate a princess and nearly died in the process. The result itself was actually somewhat interesting, even to him. When he had absorbed Luna’s magic into himself voluntarily, he had taken massive internal damage. Hiding in the Gloame for nearly a weak had more than fully recharged his magic, but his fundamental biology had been damaged in the process as well.

“An accident has temporarily reduced my ability to absorb mass,” he explained. “What you see here is all the mass I have access to at the moment.”

“So you can’t turn into a full-grown pony?” asked Scootaloo.

“I can,” said D27. “But I cannot shift my mass. I would lose density.” They looked at him confused, and he sighed. “It means that I would be as bit as a stallion, but only weigh as much as a colt. It would be extremely easy for me to be injured. Also, a slight breeze could blow me away.”

Scootaloo snorted at the thought.

“Is it permanent?” asked Applebloom.

“No. My current predictions indicate that I will regain full mass-consumption capacity in four to twelve hours. However…” his mind shifted, trying to word statements. His original mental core had been destroyed when the white alicorn who D27 assumed to be Celestia destroyed most of his body; the new one was somewhat slow. “Once my mass reaches the prerequisite three tons, I will not be able to compress this small easily. Not without dividing myself, which has its own caveats. So I figured that while I am in this…ridiculous body…I might as well see what being one of you larval ponies is like.”

“We’re not larva.”

“Yes, I am aware of that. And I am not a child. However, if I may, I would like to sit in on one of your school classes tomorrow. Actually…” he paused, observing them. They looked much different from a lower perspective; the whole world did. It all seemed so big and imposing. “Why are you all still awake on a school night?”

They looked at each other sheepishly. “I think Rarity forgot about that part,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Rarity,” said D27, vaguely recognizing the name. “That is the name of your sister.”

“Yeah,” said Sweetie Belle. She gasped. “You should meet her!”

“Sweetie Belle,” said Scootaloo. “The last time we tried to talk to Rarity when she was busy, I thought she was going to throw a mannequin at us.”

“Oh, she’s not that busy. She’s just…” their attention slowly turned toward a thin trickle of water coming through the ceiling above. “Oh no!” she cried, turning to the others. “The pipes!”

“What do you mean ‘pipes’?” said D27.

The three fillies smiled. “Cutie Mark Crusader plumbers,” they squeaked in unison.

Cutie Mark Crusaders demolition experts was more like it. The bathroom was almost completely destroyed, with leaking pipes and torn drywall everywhere. The toilet as disconnected and the sink somehow connected sideways. Somehow, the Crusaders had gotten their hooves on a gas torch- -still running, of course- -and a fireman’s axe.

“Wow,” said D27.

“Rarity’s going to kill us,” said Sweetie Belle. D27 hoped that her statement was hyperbole.

“No, now,” he said, trying to reassure her. “I can fix this.”

“But you’re not a plumber,” said Scootaloo.

D27 pointed one of his claws at his flank. “No insignia,” he said. “No one special talent.”

The horns on the top of his head sparked and released a surge Order into the room. His small size had actually led to disproportionate concentration of magic, and the spell was somewhat more vigorous than he had intended. The room exploded inward, the walls repairing themselves and the pipes violently yanking themselves back into place. Within moments, the bathroom was mostly restored.

D27 was actually rather surprised at how well Order worked for constructive or restorative purposes. He had spent most of his life attempting to use it to destroy things- -something that required an unusual amount of creativity. Seeing it interact with the works of mortals was amusing, and somewhat satisfying.

“Fixed,” said D27. “However, I may have frozen the water in the toilet.”

Scootaloo opened the lid. “Yeah, you did.”

“Sweetie Belle!” called a strangely accented voice from down the hall. “What was that noise? You know I need to give my work my complete concentration. I can’t have explosions going off in my washroom.”

“It’s Rarity!” hissed Sweetie Belle.

“She can’t see me like this,” said D27. He did not feel like trying to explain why he was in the body of a colt, especially to somepony who did not know that he was a protoplasmic shapeshifter.

“Hide him in the toilet!” said Applebloom, motioning for Scootaloo to pull open the lid again.

“It’s full of ice!” said Scootaloo.

“Don’t hide me in the toilet,” said D27. “Hold on. I can handle this.” He took a deep breath.

D27 shifted as the door opened. Expanding his mass to low density was actually rather painful, and it caused him to feel lightheaded, both figuratively and literally. His form was also not what it had been; he was paler, and somewhat more thinner. Had someone sliced him in half, they would also have seen that he was mostly filled with pockets of air.

Rarity looked into the bathroom and blinked. “You,” she said. “What are you doing in my washroom? With my sister and her friends?”

Before her confusion resolved into anger, D27 spoke. He smiled as best as he could, trying to show his pointed teeth as little as possible. “Cutie Mark Crusader plumbers, I’m afraid.”

“Plumbers?” said Rarity, blinking. She looked past D27 as the three smiling Cutie Mark Crusaders, Scootaloo still holding open the toilet seat. Then her eyes turned to the pile of tools, now neatly organized but with the gas torch still on.

“Sweetie Belle!” cried Rarity. “What were you about to do to my washroom?”

“Nothing!” said Sweetie Belle. “We were just going to see how the pipes worked, and then Applebloom said that we could- -”

“Leave me out of this!” she said.

“You’re the one that stole your brother’s tools!” said Scootaloo.

“Quiet,” said D27. The three fell silent, and Scootaloo gently close the toilet seat. “I was passing by when they found me. Apparently, they had struck a water pipe in their exploits and damaged it. They were panicking, and afraid to tell you, so they wanted me to fix it. I did. The damaged was minimal, of course. The only effect was the freezing of the toilet water. Also, the traps in the sink might be reversed, so you may want to call in a real plumber in the morning.”

“Oh,” said Rarity. She looked extremely confused. D27’s story was not even technically a lie; he had just worded it in a rather manipulative way that shifted some but not all blame from the Crusaders. “Well. Sweetie Belle, dear, we are going to have a long talk about what you can and can’t do with my pipes, and Scootaloo, dear, please don’t play in the toilet. It’s simply undignified.” She turned back to D27. She smiled strangely. “You’re a bit of a handypony, aren’t you?”

“I dabble,” said D27. For some reason, he felt slightly uncomfortable, although he attributed it mostly to the fact that he was roughly the density of a feather pillow.

“Oh, you,” she said. “I’m taking a break from my work on an order of darling winter coats for the Canterlot colt’s choir right now. Would you care to join me for some tea?”

“Tea?” The word translated in D27’s mind to an image of boiled leaf juice.

“It’s the least I can do, what with you averting a minor flood and all,” she glared at Sweetie Belle.

D27 found himself being led away. He looked back at the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and they only waved as he went.

Exactly why ponies had chairs had never been clear to D27. Their anatomy was not well suited for sitting at all, and whenever he saw them doing it, they looked terribly contorted. Sitting on one of the stools in Rarity’s kitchen made that even more apparent; he had to focus rather strongly to resist shifting himself into a more comfortable format for sitting.

Rarity approached form the stove, carrying an ornate tea kettle and a pair of teacups on saucers in her magic. She set one down in front D27, and one at the other stool. She then gently poured out steaming brown liquid from the spout of the kettle into the cups and took a seat across from D27.

Brown water was not unfamiliar to D27. Most of the time, though, when he drank it, he was filter feeding at the base of a swamp. Which is probably what he would be doing in four to twelve hours, he realized.

“I apologize in advance if I am not fully familiar with the customs of this,” said D27, taking the cup in his claws. He lifted it up and took a sip, and immediately felt dizzy. Apparently, Applejack had not been a fan of tea.

“No claws to…cause to…” said Rarity, staring wide eyed at D27’s hands.

D27 smiled and set the cup down. “I’m not a unicorn,” he said, somewhat proud of himself for using the culturally correct word. “And I have no idea how in Equestria anypony can drink tea with hooves.”

“So you grew…claws?”

“If that disturbs you, I can dispel them,” said D27.

“Oh. No, you don’t need to do that,” said Rarity, taking a sip of her own tea, which she held expertly with her own magic. D27 was somewhat jealous; if he were to try to do the same thing, he would probably just convert the teacup into crystal. Or detonate it. Or both.

“So,” said Rarity. “I suppose I should also thank you for rescuing Sweetie Belle from those horrid creatures, those ahuizotls. Such hooligans, abducting fillies in the night like that. I shudder to think what would have happened had you not come along.” She paused. “Oh, but where are my manners. You and I have not been properly introduced. My name is Rarity, I am the proprietor of this ship, Carousel Boutique, and a designer and lover of beautiful things.”

“Sweetie Belle has told me much about you,” said D27. “I am D27.”

“Exactly how much time have you been spending around my sister?” said Rarity, suspiciously.

“Some,” said D27, secretly eyeing the room for exits. “Because of my form, most ponies are…well, frightened of me, frankly. Your sister and her friends lack that aversion, and have been helpful in informing me of your culture.”

“Well, unfortunately, Sweetie Belle is hardly the one you should be speaking to about culture. Better than some, surely, but still, not at all an informative source.” She paused.

“Really?” said D27. “I was unaware of this. There are some things that I still do not understand. For example, clothing. Your species- -ponies, I mean- -are highly accepting of nudity, and yet you also wear clothing on occasion. I do not understand the reason for this.”

“Darling,” said Rarity, smiling, her eyes seeming to light up with interest. “The problem is that you’re misunderstanding the nature of clothing. It isn’t meant to cover our nakedness, but rather as a complement to our natural form. To accentuate the beauty and grace of the wearer, to reflect her personality, her very desires!”

“Ah. So, a form of artistic expression, then.”

“Exactly…but only partly. It is expression on the part of the designer, yes, but a much deeper expression on the user…it is difficult to explain. I should think you know something about this all, though.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because of that divine necklace you made for Pinkie Pie. At least, she said you made it.”

D27 searched his mind. He recalled having attached a distortion generator to the pink pony to prevent her from being devoured by shadows. “Oh,” he said. “I was wondering where that went.”

“Well, Pinkie gave it to Twilight to examine, but I’m afraid it’s probably in Canterlot by now.” She leaned closer. “One of Princess Luna’s messengers came for it,” she whispered, smiling.

“Oh,” said D27. It seemed that the princess had taken his advice. He hoped that the device would help her.

“Your design was simply marvelous,” said Rarity. “And to have your jewelry in use by a princess. Oh, I am rather jealous, that would be like a dream come true. And, actually,” she eyed D27 closely, making him feel uncomfortable again. “Now that I look at you…” She stood up and walked around, staring at different parts of D27. “When Applejack described you, the picture in my mind was, to be honest, not at all flattering…but your tail is quite a bit longer than that of most ponies, and without a mane, it actually pulls together quite nicely.” Her eyes paused on D27’s flank for longer than they should have. “No cutie mark,” she said, almost to herself.

“Yes,” said D27. “I have no cutie mark. For I am a burro.”

“A donkey?” said Rarity. “You don’t look like any donkey that I have ever met. And…a donkey with magic?”

“This is what Pinkie Pie has told me.”

“Oh. It does explain the cutie mark situation. Still…if I may be so bold, you are a bit more handsome than most donkeys I have had the…pleasure of meeting.”

“Um…thank you.” D27 sipped more of his tea.

“There is something else I just have to ask you, though.

D27 hoped that the question did not make the conversation any more awkward. He was not good at reading ponies, but if the conversation were to turn to anything involving the definition of a mule, he would not take any chances and bolt immediately for the door.

“What, exactly?” he asked.

“A few weeks ago, you gave my sister and her friends several pieces of cerorite.”

D27’s eyes narrowed. “Yes,” he said. “The cerorite. I am surprised you were even able to recognize it.”

“There aren’t three gemstones on my flank for no reason.” She leaned closer. “Cerorite is literally the rarest substance in all of Equestria. Where did you even get any? And why would you give it to three fillies?”

“I my defense, I did not know that it was rare.”

“How could you not know?”

“Because I have a large stockpile of it. I understand that it is far more durable than normal materials and that it does not form naturally, but I assumed that it was used for trade as with normal gemstones.”

Rarity just stared at him. D27 could not tell if she was confused or disgusted. “How much, exactly, do you have?”

“I’ve never actually weighed it,” said D27. “Probably several hundred pounds, at least, in various caliber.”

“Several…hundred…pounds?!”

“Approximately,” said D27. For a moment, he wondered if he could one of the larger caliber pieces in a mass accelerator to destroy the moon. He rapidly dismissed it as largely impossible. “Why? What is the current abundance of cerorite on this world?”

“On this world? There are only three pieces. I simply must know. I hate to ask, but the excitement is simply…oh,” she fanned herself with her hoof. “Might I trouble you for a piece? Even just one?”

“Why?” asked D27, confused. “What are you trying to kill with it?”

“Kill? How would you even- -no, of course not. I intend make it into…oh, I don’t even know. There are just so many possibilities! Perhaps a headdress, or a necklace…or maybe something far more subtle and intricate, like a horn ring…”

“You are intending to make jewelry out of it?”

“Of course, darling! Although I’m not even sure if my skill is worthy of such a stone.”

“Why would you want to make jewelry out of cerorite?”

“Why?” asked Rarity, confused.

“It is an ugly color, and mildly corrosive to most metals.”

“Well, that will make the setting a bit of a challenge, and I admit, the hue is not the most flattering, but perhaps with some secondary gems, perhaps in green.”

“Yes.”

“Well, perhaps not, though. Green would be stunning from a distance, but up close one would need to consider the lustre of the stone.”

“No, I mean you can have one of my cerorites. I don’t have any inside me at the moment, but I will try to have one sent next time I am in my office.”

“Really? You’re serious?” Rarity released an excited squeal and nearly knocked D27 off his chair with a tremendous hug, which confirmed to D27 that ponies were, indeed, covered in fine fuzz and reconfirmed the fact that being compressed in a low density state was extremely painful.

Rarity separated, and cleared her throat. “Surely I’ll have to do something in return, though.”

“Please don’t,” said D27, trying to restore his shape as best as he could.

“No. I simply wouldn’t do to take your gems without giving. Perhaps a suit…or a whole set of suits. I don’t usually work with stallions, but your appearance is unique, and might allow me to do something a bit edgier. I can get started on it after I finish the- -” She clapped her hoofs over her mouth, causing D27 to jump. “Oh sweet Celestia! In all the excitement, I forgot about my current project. The choir will be performing before the princesses in just two weeks, and I still need to finish the basic uniforms, let alone the fitting!” There was a thump from somewhere upstairs, and some yelling. “And it’s difficult enough to do without my little Crusader problem. Of all the days for Fluttershy to be on a butterfly census trip.”

“I can watch them,” said D27.

“You? Darling, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t know if...”

“If you trust me around your sister and her friends.”

“Well, that’s not how I would have put it, but…yes.”

“Your sister is a tiny pony. I mean, have you seen her? She’s absolutely adorable. What kind of monster would I have to be to hurt a filly?”

“Well, you have a point…”

“Besides, we’ll just be downstairs. And how could I do anything remotely harmful when I vision of beauty such as yourself is hard at work above me?”

Rarity looked surprised, and then suddenly blushed. “Oh, you. I had no idea you were such a charmer!”

“A mare such as yourself deserves compliments,” said D27, finishing his tea. He felt dirty; as a pony, he supposed that Rarity was not unattractive- -but she was a pony.

“Oh, why thank you.” There was another thumb from above, and both of them looked up. “Just keep them from tearing apart the pipes, if you please. There’s food if you get hungry. Thank you again!” She trotted toward the stares. “Sweetie Belle!” she called. “When I come up there, I had better not see that axe in your magic!”

D27 waved, and then sighed. His body completely disintegrated into a puddle of bubbling blue liquid. Maintaining a low-density form was hard. He needed to rest for a moment.

“Is she gone?” said Applebloom, peeking from around a corner after several moments. The remainder of D27 that was able to see saw her grimace at his present state.

“Yes,” said D27. He slid off the chair into a puddle on the floor and began to condense. He formed a tiny clawed leg and began to pull himself from liquid, reforming it into his colt form. Even that was somewhat difficult. He wondered how that unfortunate bat-winged assassin had managed to survive the magical blast for as long as she did when even an immortal Choggoth could be so injured by Luna’s magic.

“Did you kiss,” said Scootaloo, pretending to hold something in front of her and contorting her lips as though she was kissing something. “Ow!” she cried as Sweetie Belle punched her.

“That’s my sister!” she said.

“Well, he already kissed Applebloom’s sister.” She paused. “Hey, D27, you aren’t going to try to kiss Rainbow Dash, are you?”

“One, I did not ‘kiss’ Applejack. I assimilated her tastebuds. I don’t even technically have a tongue. Two, Rarity is not the sort to just go and kiss somewhat randomly. Third, Rainbow Dash hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” said Scootaloo. “I think she even accepted your apology.”

“And I would rather not need to tender another one. Especially if I get punched in the face again. Why do they always aim for the face?”

“So Rarity let you watch us?” said Sweetie Belle.

“Just to make sure you don’t do something destructive.”

“Now why would we go and do something like that?”

The other two looked at Sweetie Belle. “Oh.”

“Hey!” said Applebloom. “We can help you get your cutie mark too!”

“No, you can’t,” said D27. “Because I am not a pony, and I will never have a cutie mark.”

“Oh, I forgot,” said Applebloom. “That’s actually kind of depressing, if you actually think about it.”

“I try not to think about things,” said D27. “Besides. I am an adult. Somewhat. Pretending to be a child would be…inappropriate.”

“And yet you want to go to school,” said Scootaloo.

“Touché, tiny orange Pegasus. Touché.”

Watching the Cutie Mark Crusaders was not difficult. It was simply a matter of supplying copious quantities of Order magic into anything they destroyed. Mostly, D27 just sat in a corner with his legs under his body, a position he mentally referred to as a “pony loaf”. It was far more comfortable than using a chair.

Eventually, D27 felt the restrictions on his mass absorbing ability being reduced. The hunger was returning. In response, he produced a set of three crystals from within his body. He had decided to take the risk of bringing his portal with him; in his current state, his only defense was Batesian mimicry of an adorable pony, which, in his limited experience, was not highly effective. It therefore was worth the risk of detection to carry a portable escape route.

The crystals separated, forming a small portal horizontally above D27. An apple dropped out, and the portal closed. Never in his life had D27 expected to be tearing holes in the fabric of the universe to summon apples. They were that good, though.

As he slowly bored through the apple, D27 watched the Crusaders. They were attempting to do some kind of stunt that involved Scootaloo and Applebloom standing on Sweetie Belle’s shoulders, holding hooves, in a kind of inverse pyramid. Their logic, apparently, had been that since Sweetie Belle was the least coordinated, she should be at the bottom and try to hold the other two up with magic. Her magic was weak, though, and- -as the main flaw in their logic indicated- -unpathetic. They inevitably tumbled to the floor, where D27 had required them to place pillows.

“Your using magic wrong,” said D27.

“I’m trying,” said Sweetie Belle. “But somepony is very heavy.”

“What?” said Scootaloo. “Rainbow Dash is really good at making cloud cake- -” she clapped her hooves over her mouth. “Please don’t tell her I told you that.”

“I want cake,” said Applebloom. “Hey, where did you get those apples?”

“Parallel dimension,” said D27, eating the last of the core and preserving the seeds for an orchard that he intended to grow in the Gloame. “But my original point. Tiny white pony, you are using magic improperly. Other two ponies, go to rarity’s refrigerator. Eat her cake.”

“Rarity has cake?” said Applebloom. They immediately dashed off, nearly tripping over themselves, Scootaloo’s wings vibrating excitedly.

“I want cake,” whined Sweetie Belle.

“Later. First, magic.” D27 stood up and took down a half-empty cup that one of them had left on an end table and miraculously not managed to knock over. “When you use your magic, you are trying to engulf whatever you are lifting.”

“That’s kind of how magic works. That’s how Rarity does it.”

“Yes. That is how I imagine unicorns would use their magic. Having one horn has its advantages, but causes great loss of dexterity.”

“One horn?”

“Yes. Here. Take this. But this time, project your magic on three points.” He pointed at three points, forming a triangle around the cup.

“Three? But I can’t focus my magic on that many places!”

“Of course you can. Form a shape, not a cloud.”

“Okay,” sighed Sweetie Belle. She grimaced, and the tip of her tiny horn glowed with a blue-white light. D27 held the cup out, and watched as a triangle flickered into existence around it. Then, without warning, he released it.

“Hey!” cried Sweetie Belle. Then, upon seeing that the cup remained suspended quite stably, she smiled. “Hey, it works!” She moved the glass around with ease and precision.

“A trihorn your age would be expected to have a nine-hundred pound lifting capacity and be able to assemble a summoning matrix generator with magic alone. The reason: they had three horns.”

“Three horns?” said Sweetie Belle. “What kind of unicorn has three horns? Wouldn’t that be a tricorn?”

“No. Tricorn is a manner of hat. That, oddly, has little to do with corn.”

Sweetie Belle waved the glass around slightly, and then attempted to drink from it. No liquid came out, though, and she looked inside. “Um,” she said.

D27 looked inside as well. The magic had filled the center of the cup as well as the triangle, forming a membrane that blocked the liquid inside.

“Hmm,” said D27. “That’s weird. How about you don’t try this one on your friends quite yet. It might impede the blood flow a bit.”

Even in his damaged state, D27 did not need sleep. As such, the next morning, he had lost no energy, aside from the appreciable but not significant expenditure of Order that he had used to keep the Cutie Mark Crusaders from destroying Rarity’s home. The Crusaders, however, had slept far less than fillies should have, and the manner of motion that they were taking on their way to school could only be described as “trudging”.

“Pick up the pace,” said D27. “You’re going to be late.”

“Your awfully excited about this,” said Applebloom, sleepily. She yawned widely. “It’s not like you’ve never been to school before.”

“I haven’t.”

“You haven’t?”

“How do you know things?” said Scootaloo.

“As far as I can tell, my people are born fully functional from spores. We have no schools. Or buildings or cities or society, really.”

“How do you get anything done?”

“You are too tired for me to explain that,” said D27.

In the distance, he saw what he expected to be the school, based on the number of children that were approaching it. It was a rather ornate but small red building, complete with a flag and a topiary sculpture of a pony with a strange hat.

As D27 got closer, he tried to avoid the topiary. Bushes looking like things that were not bushes disturbed him.

“Hello there,” said an oddly cheerful voice. D27 looked upward and saw the smiling face of a pony whose shade was between purple and pink. “I haven’t met you before.”

“No,” said D27, realizing that he had seen her once before. “Am I to assume that you are the teacher, Miss Cheerilee?”

“That I am. And who are you?”

D27 sighed. “My name is D2.7,” he said begrudgingly.

“Dee Two-Point Seven?” said Cheerilee, somewhat confused. “That’s an unusual name.”

“I am aware of this fact.”

“Did your parents just enroll you here?”

“No,” said D27. “I was in town visiting…relatives. I was hoping that I could sit-in on a session of your class.”

“Really?” said Cheerilee, somewhat surprised.

“Is that unusual?”

“Well, it’s just that in your case, since your on vacation, you don’t really need to go to school.”

“There are a great many things that I do not need to do and yet do anyway.”

“It’s just that most colts your age would rather be out playing than in school.”

D27 did not tell her that there were no “colts” his age, or that he was actually several million times her own age. Instead he simply smiled, this time clearly showing his sharpened teeth. “I am very much interested to see the workings of a foreign school.”

“Oh, aren’t you just the sweetest thing,” said Cheerilee. “Of course you can attend. We have a spare desk in the back.”

She led him into the schoolhouse.

Cheerilee began to regret allowing D2.7 into her class. It was not that he was disruptive, per se, but that he was unlike any child Cheerilee had ever witnessed. Due to her special talent as a teacher, she had come to understand children very well. She knew their needs, and how they thought, and how to allow them to learn. This thing, though, in her mind, was almost surely not a child.

Normal students, for one, were somewhat figidty. Sitting for a long time in uncomfortable chairs made them move arouond, or play with their manes, or, in the case of the three “Cutie Mark Crusaders” on that particular day, fall asleep. D2.7 did none of those things. Instead, he sat perfectly still, staring forward blankly with his strange, colorless triangular pupils. Cheerilee had ignored it at first, but then realized that he was not blinking either. Even when she turned to write on the chalkboard, she could feel those horrible eyes burning into her back, as if he was seeing into her soul.

At several points, she called on him just to make sure that he was not dead. He was apparently listening very carefully, though, because he managed to instantly answer most questions. His knowledge base was actually even more bizarre than his lack of motion. In terms of mathematics, he was able to compute values far faster than any of the other students; at one point, Cheerilee had even put a rather complicated calculus problem on the board, under the guise of showing students just what more advanced mathematics looked like. As a joke, she had asked D27 to solve it- -which he did without even hesitation to think, as though it were perfectly natural for a child to know the answer.

His knowledge was profoundly lacking in other areas, though. Cheerilee had asked him a question during their cultural segment about griffons, and he had not known what they were. He could not recognize pictures of most animals as the other students could, and when she asked the students to name five foods that ponies ate to compare them to the diets of animals, the only two foods that D2.7 could name were apples and cake.

The worst, though, was science. Cheerilee had been presenting a lesson on pony internal anatomy. She had a set of charts with cartoon ponies, and on that day had pulled down the chart with a blue and red picture of the pony circulatory system. She was explaining that a pony’s heart was what pumped blood to all the organs, one of the students raised their hoof.

Happy that the student was not D2.7- -whose eyes were still following Cheerilee as she moved around the room, as if seeking out her own heart- -Cheerilee called on her.

“Yes?”

“But what if the heart were to stop pumping?”

Before Cheerilee could respond in a child-appropriate way, D2.7 responded, as if he did not understand that he was only supposed to ask questions directed at him.

“Stasis of blood,” he said. “Hypoxia of the extremities, at first, followed by tissue necrosis. The brain fails to receive oxygen, and the cells immediately start to accumulate reactive oxygen species. Necrosis, usually liquefactive, results.” He turned his massive, terrible eyes toward the student who had asked the question. He had no expression, and no hesitation. “The subject terminates within three minutes.”

“Termination?” said the student, tears welling in her eyes.

“Now, now,” said Cheerilee, trying to smile and reassure her now extremely nervous students. “The heart just doesn’t stop. It’s very difficult to make it do that, isn’t that right, D2.7?” She bit her lip, realizing her mistake too late.

“The heart can stop from electrical injury, direct trauma, failure of the coronary arteries, as well as paralysis from numerous toxins, several of which can be incorporated into food flavorlessly. It can also be removed directly, although in such cases, the subject will usually die of exsanguination.”

“Exsangu what?”

“Blood loss. Admittedly, the heart will not technically stop if removed. It continued to beat.” D2.7 paused, and without a hint of emotion, added. “Not an unimpressive sight.”

“D2.7!” said Cheerilee, turning toward the strange student. “Don’t say things like…like…” She stopped. He only continued to stare. He showed no sign of remorse or reaction, as if Cheerilee yelling at him was just another irrelevant piece of his background. She could also see that he had no intention of cruelty; he had not intended to frighten the other students, or to shock them. He had simply stated what he knew, as easily as any other student would have known what a chicken ate.

It was in that moment that Cheerilee realized that, at some point in his life, this student had seen somepony’s heart removed, and not felt a fragment of fear or disgust. That was the moment that she decided to dismiss class early that day.

D27 left the schoolhouse, once again trying to stay as far away from the topiary sculpture as possible. He realized that at some point, something had gone wrong. He had attempted to behave as he deemed appropriate for school, but found that Cheerilee had become increasingly distressed throughout the day. Improving his behavior and attempting to answer her questions more thoroughly and to be more attentive had only exacerbated the situation.

The other students spilled out around him, most avoiding him. They seemed shaken, although their moods generally improved as they started to play on the assorted playground equipment in the schoolyard. D27 wondered if he had offended them somehow; he had adjusted his responses to be appropriate for children. He had, of course, modulated them for trihorn children, assuming ponies to be similar. Trihorns of this age group would have already had far more extensive knowlage, though, especially involving anatomy, considering how at the time of D27’s deactivation it was not unheard of for them to dissect a living, conscious monohorn slave to learn it. A gruesome sight indeed, although any student who could resurrect the monohorn at the end of the procedure received it as a gift.

“I knew it,” said a voice. D27 referenced it against voices he knew, and determined that he did not know the owner. He turned to find a pair of fillies attempting to loom over him. One was pink, and the other gray. The pink one was wearing a tiara for some reason.

“Knew what?” asked D27.

“That a spooky weirdo like you just had to be a blank-flank.”

D27 continued to stare at them. He was not entirely sure what was going on.

“You’re cutie mark will probably be really gross,” said the gray filly. “Or in being a nerd.”

“If he ever gets one at all!” added the pink one.

D27 examined them more closely. The pink one had an insignia of a tiara, which did not surprise him, and the other had an ornate tool that looked like a spoon. D27 understood that cutie marks were generally linked to special talents; he wondered what the talents of these two were.

“I am already aware that I am incapable of generating one of these ‘cutie marks’,” sighed D27.

“Wow,” said the gray filly. The two looked at each other. “You talk really weird.”

“Because your language is primitive and verbally hideous,” said D27.

“Yeah, well, so is your face! And I bet your cutie mark will be too!”

“You were not listening,” said D27, growing somewhat amused but also annoyed. “I just said: I cannot develop a cutie mark.”

“What?” said the pink one.

“O. M. C!” added the other.

“So you’re, like, stuck as a blank flank forever?”

They laughed harshly together.

“If I was stuck as a blank flank, I would just die!”

“Yeah. At that point, you’re better off dead.”

“Why?” asked D27.

Their laughter stopped, and they blinked, confused. “Why?” asked the pink one.

“I fail to see the utility of a mark,” said D27. “Actually, I fail to see the use of this conversation. You are neither attempting to relay information or to ask anything of me. You are both mortal, and wasting precious seconds of your finite lives. Why are you bothering me with this?”

“Did you just threaten me?” said the pink one, reacting as though she had been physically wounded.

“No,” said D27. “My statement contained a truth on the nature of your mortality. It did not contain any proposal to harm you physically or mentally. It was a fact, not a threat.”

“I’ll tell Miss Cheerilee on you!”

“And she will do what, exactly? Yell at me? Make me wear a pointed hat in a corner?” he paused. “These are not rhetorical questions. I actually do not know. But I suppose it does not matter. The development of your species is slow, and it is doubtful that you two have the brain capacity to understand what I am saying.”

“Hey!” said the pink one, at least partially understanding that D27 had insulted her. “You can’t talk to me like that!”

“I can talk to anyone and anything as I choose.”

The pink one seemed to be becoming increasingly enraged, while the gray one seemed to be trying to decipher D27’s last statement. “I’ll have you know that my father is the richest stallion in ponyville!”

“And what does that mean to me, exactly? Short of hiring someone to murder me, what could he even expect to accomplish? What is the point of money, or power among others? Or the status of a one of these ‘cutie marks’? These things are so…pointless. And why am I having this argument with a child?”

D27 shifted what little mass he had, and returned to his adult form. “I don’t have time for this, and I’m immortal. Thank you for your time.”

He then left, leaving the two fillies rather stunned where they stood.

A dark shadow moved silently through the forest. The leaves and shadows of the old growth shaded him, allowing only a dappling of the Divine Light from above to fall upon his deep brown fur.

Nearly a week had passed since their previous failure. Tlilxochitl had taken the brunt of the injuries, and was still lying in a well secluded cave deeper in the Everfree Forest. Her injuries had somehow been healed, but only incompletely. Over the past week, she had been feverish and shifted in and out of delirium, stating only that she needed to return to the castle over and over again.

That was, of course, not possible. Their Divine Mother was unforgiving. The dishonor of returning as failures would be too great to bear. If Celestia did not kill them outright for their betrayal, she would expect their “resignation”, in the form of suicide. She was far less forgiving with her true children than with her chosen people, the ponies, but this was the nature and the pride of the ahuizotl, those who had sworn their allegiance to the sun since long before it had given birth to a form of flesh.

Tlilxochitl’s mistakes the last time had been severe, and cost them the element of surprise and their victory. Chocolatl, however, was as methodical and persistent as his wife was violent and brutal. The encounter had shown him things, and given him the information he needed to defeat the enemy: he now knew what it looked like, and that it was powerfully sensitive to silver.

It had taken him days to steal the necessary materials, and almost a week to assemble, but he had created a new weapon that he believed would make him far more successful. By disassembling the arms given to him by the Divine Goddess, he had managed to acquire enough parts to assemble a version with a longer barrel and significantly more power. The target was dangerous up close, but at range, he would be able to fire a hand-forged fragmentary bullet into its body. That would almost surely kill it.

As he moved through the forest, staying out of sight and following the blue pony returning from the schoolhouse, he became unusually self-aware, as he often did during the hunt. He knew that the mission from the Goddess was no longer his primary driver. It was instead what he had seen, and what he had realized when that thing had taken his wife.

There had always been danger in their line of work. They always knew that there was a risk of injuries, especially when monsters were involved. Ever since he and Tlilxochitl had been children, they had known that they could be killed at any time. He had thought he had accepted that, but when he saw the bladed tentacle pierce her body and pull her within the writing mass of spines and shifting, horrible tissue, he learned that he was not removal prepared. In that moment, he had felt what it was like to have her taken from him, to lose the one mortal creature in all of Equestria that he truly loved.

The experience had nearly broken him, but in time, only made him stronger. He understood what a monster this creature was, and he had sworn his vengeance against it. He could not allow it to survive. Not for what it had done to Tlilxochitl.

He jumped into a tree, rapidly ascending, and reached the top of a rocky outcropping ahead of the target. Chocolatl dropped to his stomach and extended the long gun. He looked through the scope, made from half a set of binoculars, and manipulated the weapon to move the crosshairs over his approaching target.

“One silver bullet,” he whispered. “One shot. One death. It is what you deserve, creature.”

Suddenly, in the distance, the target stopped. One of its wide, triangle-pupiled eyes shifted toward Chocolatl’s position, as though he knew.

Such was impossible, of course. Chocolatl was two hundred yards away, hidden in dense brush. There was no way that creature knew he was there, and yet he hesitated to pull the trigger.

That was when he felt a sudden force against his back, like something pushing him downward, and a sudden pain. He released the weapon and partially stood. He looked down, and was unbelievable confused. His mind could not conceive how the tip of a blood-covered sword could be sticking out of his chest.

The blade retracted, pulling from behind. Its motion through him was suddenly agonizing, and he cried out weakly. He fell onto his weapon, knocking it off the edge of the cliff. A pool of blood was forming rapidly beneath him.

With his strength fading rapidly, Chocolatl turned himself over, if only to see who had attacked him. There, above him, her immaculate white coat stained with his own blood, was Tlilxochitl.

Something was wrong with her, though. She was still shaking from fever, and deathly pale. A wound in the sun-shaped scar in her chest had opened, and aside from blood and pus was also producing curling, pointed blue tentacles that dug into her flesh.

She stared down at the dying Chocolatl. One of her eyes was gone, replaced instead with a mass of blue marked with a pair of equilateral triangles. The other was weeping tears of profound sadness, and Chocolatl realized that it was not only her fever that she was shaking from.

A blue foam was collecting at the edges of her mouth, but she still managed to speak.

“I warned you,” she said in a voice that was not her own.

She turned and began walking, her body jerking like a poorly controlled marionette. She seemed to try to cry out in pain as she moved, as if any motion was agonizing.

“I must…get to…the castle,” she moaned, and suddenly accelerated, disappearing into the brush.

Chocolatl himself wept as well, for he knew that he had lost his wife for a second time. The last thing he saw was the sphere of the Goddess, and he felt its warmth even as he grew cold. Then everything faded to darkness.