Scootaloo gasped and tore off her helmet. The air surrounding her did not smell good at all; it had a scent of solvents, mechanical grease, and something metallic rotting badly, but it was better than the rarified gas she had been breathing.

She collapsed to the cold metal floor, shaking from the reduced oxygen. Above her, one of the masked ponies watched with mild amusement. Then she removed her helmet. Even with her hair cut short, it still had its characteristic pink strip, and her eyes still had the shape Scootaloo was familiar with.

“Twilight,” she gasped.

“What is this Twilight?” asked the alicorn.

“She is suffering from severe hypoxia and strenuous physical exertion,” said another pony. This one was much larger than the other, but she had already removed her helmet to reveal that despite her size she also looked nearly identical to Twilight Sparkle. At her side was a thin pony who remained masked, with only her horn and fluffy purple wings visible.

“Take a step back,” said a voice that was not Twilight’s. The black-clad human stepped forward, with the forth alicorn close to her side. She removed her own respiration mask, shaking out her hair and setting the helmet behind her. Scootaloo was surprised by her appearance: she was as beautiful as her comrade was ugly. Her face was perfectly proportioned with smooth, black hair that actually looked clean. She even smelled nice.

The human put her hand on Scootaloo’s shoulder. “Eight, a medical kit?”

The alicorn beside her nodded and there was a small blast of purple as a box with a green-colored cross appeared at the human’s side. She immediately opened it and attached a mask to Scootaloo’s face.

“Breathe, pony. You’re save with Cerberus now.”

Scootaloo resisted at first, not sure what she was being forced to breathe. When she noticed that there was no smell, though, she began to feel better.

“Your condenser must have actually been feeding you the gas on that ship,” she said, picking up a syringe and feeding it through Scootaloo’s medical port. Scootaloo cringed as she was injected with the contents of the needle. “You might not have noticed, but the air had a high concentration of toxic particulates. It is not conducive to alien life. You were lucky to not have passed out.”

“But the other human…she was not wearing a mask.”

“Mother is an exception,” said one of the alicorns. She smiled, and Scootaloo saw that unlike the real Twilight, her teeth were unusually pointed.

“You know what humans are? That makes this easier.”

Scootaloo sat up suddenly, the drug injected into her taking effect. “My ship! My crew! I need to- -”

“Calm down,” said the largest of the alicorns. “Four confirmed that your vessel safely exited the spatial dilation field. They are safe.”

“Or as safe as they can be,” said another Twilight voice. Scootaloo turned to see a fifth pony. Initially, she did not perceive this one as a Twilight. Her skin was more gray than purple, and she seemed unhealthily thin. That, and she had no wings, which as she walked Scootaloo quickly realized was because they had been torn from her body, leaving only a pair of scarred stumps. “They put their ship through hell getting it out of here. Whoever your pilot is, he’s either an absolute moron or…well…a reckless moron.”

The fifth alicorn was not alone. She was standing close to the feet of another human, this one tall with long yellow hair and handsomely wide eyes that looked somehow perversely dead. He was wearing a bomber jacket over a white shirt with the Cerberus insignia on the front.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I thought it was pretty impressive.”

“It would have been more impressive if it had hit something,” said Four. She appeared older than the others, and her voice was just slightly deeper. Scootaloo realized that she was most likely the one she had heard over the comlink. “I really would like to have seen how an Equestrian ship looks when it explodes.”

“The explosions all look the same without the correct analytic scanners,” said the blonde human.

“Who said I hadn’t already engaged them?”

“In the middle of plowing through alien ships on a rescue mission?”

“Why not? Just because you can’t manage it doesn’t mean I can’t.”

The human smiled and rustled her hair. She giggled and leaned against his leg.

“It’s getting to crowded in here,” said the other human. She reached for Scootaloo’s shoulder. “I’ll get you to the medical bay.”

“No,” said Scootaloo, taking off the breathing mask. “I’m fine. It’s just that…oh crap. Holy buck. I thought I was going to die there. Actually…” she looked around the room. “I’m not so sure I didn’t.”

“Trust me,” said the blond human. “When Bob gets back from whatever she’s doing, you’ll wish you had.”

“Agent!” snapped the other human. She looked down at Scootaloo and smiled. “He doesn’t mean it.”

“I think he might,” said one of the alicorns.

“Quiet, you!” She turned back to Scootaloo. “What’s your name, little pony?”

“Scootaloo, Capt- -I mean Priestess of the Cult of Harmony. I’m captain of that ship that you saw.”

“Captain? Really?” said one of the alicorns. “Who sends the captain on an away mission?”

“Well, my name is Oriana. Oriana Lawson, Cerberus operative First-Class. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain Scootaloo.” She extended a hand, and as strange as the appendage was, Scootaloo took it in her hoof and shook it.

“And the…the alicorns?”

Oriana pointed, starting with the older gray one that stood next to the blond human. “That is Four. The large one is Six, and the one standing next to her Seven. This is Eight,” she put her hand on the back of the one standing next to her who had teleported in the medical kit, and the alicorn removed her helmet, smiling cheerfully despite the fact that she was bearing her pointed teeth directly at Scootaloo. “And the youngest is Nine, there.”

“You’re the first pony I’ve ever met that’s not one of us,” mused Nine. “You look smaller than I expected.”

“I’m not a very big pony,” said Scootaloo. She tried to stand, but found that all the running on the Crimson Horizon had taken more out of her than she had thought and she fell. Oriana and Eight rushed forward to support her.

“Weaker than I anticipated, too,” said Nine.

“And him?” said Scootaloo, trying to draw attention away from her inability to immediately stand. Something about these alicorns struck her as strange, and not just the fact that they all looked like Twilight Sparkle. Something about them was ominous, as if they seemed unusually hungry. “The other human?”

“He’s not a human,” snapped Four.

“Four, it’s okay,” he said. “She is right, though. I’m not human. My name is Marc Antony. And you are adorable. Not nearly as adorable as Four, of course, but still damn cute.”

“Aww,” said Four. “You think I’m cute?”

“You are, and you know it.”

Four’s wing stumps fluttered involuntarily as she smiled up at Marc Antony. Scootaloo was about to ask exactly what he was if he was not human when she suddenly became aware of a pair of blue eyes watching her from a dark doorway. Scootaloo suddenly seemed to forget about how tired and sore she was and nearly jumped out of her skin upon seeing those eyes.

The eyes moved forward, and the gray face they were connected to came into the light. Then their owner stood.

“Marc?” she said. “What range did you give us?”

“I parked us around X81777. No inhabited worlds, no mass relay. Not even a real name. We won’t be disturbed here. After what you pulled with the cannon, Bjorn is going to need time to recover.”

“He deserves it. That was pretty epic. You guys were great.” The woman looked down at the alicorns. “Another perfect execution. We didn’t get any food, but still. Whatever the hell those things were, we showed them.”

“Thank you, mother,” said Nine, beaming with pride.

The human’s eyes turned toward Scootaloo, and she moved into the room, crouching suddenly and pressing her face to within inches of Scootaloo’s own. As Scootaloo expected, this human stunk. Badly. Like rotten meat and something chemical.

With their faces so close togather, Scootaloo could see that the human’s eyes seemed much larger than normal. With her pupils not compressed into slits in the dim light, they were enormous and inky black with only a thin rim of blue iris around them.

Then, without warning, she licked Scootaloo’s nose and stood up. “Tastes like pone.”

“Bob!” said Oriana. “That’s unprofessional!”

“I’m pretty sure the only pro here is you,” noted Bob. She smiled, and Scootaloo noticed that her canine teeth were slightly longer than they should have been. “I am Bob,” she said. “In the female sense. I’m a girl Bob. You’d know that already if Cerberus didn’t require me to wear, you know, clothes. This is my ship. I own it. I also own Marc Antony.”

“She doesn’t really,” said Marc Antony.

“I don’t? Oh, well, then I guess I’m his boss. I pay him.”

“Sometimes,” muttered Marc Antony.

“And you’re Cerberus too,” inferred Scootaloo.

“Cerberus pays me,” said Bob, “and I like money. So yeah, I’m Cerberus.”

“It’s about more than just getting paid,” snapped Oriana, angrily.

“Really? A bit ironic for you to be saying that, don’t you think?”

Six leaned in close to Scootaloo and whispered. “It’s funny because she is implying that miss Oriana is a prostitute.”

“Which is ironic coming from HER,” added Oriana.

“Hey! I’ve never done it for money!”

“Has anyone ever asked?” asked Marc Antony.

“Well…no.” She smiled deviously. “Do you want to be the first, Marc? Come on, I’ve seen the way you look at me. Come on, put a synth baby in me!”

Marc Antony looked like he was about to vomit. Bob laughed.

“Oh,” said Scootaloo, looking around. The adrenaline caused by Bob’s sudden appearance was fading, and Scootaloo began to feel immensely tired. She started to wonder just what was in that syringe she had been injected with. “I think…I think I need to be unconscious now.”

With that, she passed out.

Scootaloo awoke with a start and stared into the darkness. She did not know where she was, or how she had gotten there. Then the memories started to come back to her, and that did not help her situation at all.

As her eyes adjusted, she realized that she was in a storage room. The walls were lined with racks and racks of equipment. Almost all of it was guns and weapons of every shape and size imaginable, but there were also neatly organized stacks of medical supplies as well as what Scootaloo could only guess were explosives. On the far end, there were even several sets of Cerberus armor sized both for humans and for ponies.

Scootaloo, had, apparently, been given a blanket to lie on. There was also a small note taped to her chest, written in neat cursive hoofwriting that looked almost exactly like she would expect from Twilight Sparkle, apart from the fact that the Equestrian written was grammatically clunky and almost archaic. It read, roughly: “Don’t you dare touch ANYTHING or I will teleport your intestines into your throat. Thank you. Yours, Eight.”

“What the hay,” muttered Scootaloo, rubbing her head and standing up. She realized suddenly that she was not wearing her landing armor; it had been removed and placed neatly beside her. She was now standing in the undergarments associated with it: socks, a vest, and panties. The implication was that somepony had undressed her, but Scootaloo tried to ignore that though.

It was, however, somewhat fortuitous. Sleeping in landingwear was terribly uncomfortable, and the few times Scootaloo had tried it she had woken up with terrible cramps. Even now, despite having only a thin blanket between her and the cold metal ground, Scootaloo felt surprisingly good. Her muscles were sore, but she was no longer tired.

Scootaloo stretched and yawned, and then started putting her outer clothing back on. She was not entirely sure why; the denizens of this ship had already shown themselves as not being openly hostile. Something about this place made armor seem appropriate, though.

Exactly who the owners of this ship were, though, was still beyond Scootaloo. She distantly recalled that Rainbow Dash had mentioned the name “Cerberus” several times before, and not referring to the species of three-headed dog on Tartarus. That had been after the incident at the aliens’ Citadel, though, and by then Rainbow Dash was hardly willing to talk to Scootaloo about anything, especially the intricacies of alien organizations.

Scootaloo was on the fence about them. They had saved her life, of course, but there were still too many questions. The largest of them being why this ship’s crew consisted mostly of nearly identical alicorns. To answer that, though, she would need to actually ask.

Once she was dressed, Scootaloo exited the room. Outside, she found herself in a long, empty hallway. There was almost no light, and at the corner of her vision she could have sworn that she saw something move through the shadows. Something very tall and very thin. Scootaloo chose to go in the opposite direction.

The corridor of this ship immediately struck her as strange. Normally, in Equestrian ship design- -and she assumed in any ship design- -the structural walls of a ship were covered with a façade that protected the internal components of the walls. It made the ship look neat and clean but also kept the crew from accidentally coming in contact with anything hot or damaged. On this ship, however, the plating on the walls had been completely omitted. The frames of the walls were exposed and opened, and conduits and pipes were visible on the walls and ceiling. The inside of many of the rooms were visible through the walls, and most seemed to contain crates and boxes or other unidentifiable equipment.

Most of the pipes and components in the walls seemed strange as well. They were not consistent, but would rather rapidly shift between designs and formats that had been welded or connected together by bizarre interfaces. The few light sources that were present in the corridor were not evenly spaced, but rather added to various power conduits as though they were secondary, a decision made at the last minute after everything else was built. This led to them never being in exactly the same place, but instead appearing at random intervals and on random parts of the wall.

Even the floor was incomplete. It consisted of large metal tiles connected to glowing strands of conduit, and there were wide spaces between them. As Scootaloo jumped or stepped from tile to tile, she felt gravity shift and realized that the metal was actually gravity plating- -and there was barely enough of it to keep her from floating away.

As she moved through the vessel, Scootaloo realized that she could hear voices. At first she thought she might possibly be going insane, but then she heard motion as well as ponies were moving around: hoofsteps, the sound of things clinking together. Scootaloo followed the sound through the bowels of the ship.

When she finally reached the source of the sound, Scootaloo found herself looking into a large room with a table in the center, lit by several intense white lights in the ceiling that made the room’s occupants cast strange shadows. Numerous alicorn eyes looked up at Scootaloo as she peered in.

Most of the alicorns were seated at the table. Eight sat on one side, and Six and Seven were on the other. Four was at the end, but did not have a seat of her own. Rather, she was sitting in Marc Antony’s lap, her forelegs wrapped around his neck as she held him.

“Look who decided to wake up,” said Four, leaning back from Marc Antony.

“You got my note?” said Eight, looking suspiciously at Scootaloo.

Scootaloo held up the note. “Yeah, I got it. Don’t worry. I didn’t touch anything.”

“Good,” said Eight, smiling. “Because I have a system. Everything NEEDS to be organized. Perfectly. Every time. And I really would hate to mess with the order of your organs. It gets…messy.”

“I always think it is funny,” said Four. “I mean, the look on their faces. They always seem so surprised.”

The alicorns turned toward Seven, who was the only one in the room who was still wearing her mask. She did not speak, but the other alicorns giggled.

“Seven likes it too,” explained Six. “Seven likes a lot of things like that.”

“Pone!” said Bob, emerging into the room. She was holding a wet-looking cardboard box. Nine was at her side, levitating several metal trays. “You came for dinner!”

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” said Scootaloo. “I’m sorry, I’ll just- -”

“No way!” said Bob. Nine’s magic pulled Scootaloo into the room. “You’re our guest! We’re celebrating our success rescuing you, so you might as well be here. It’s a bit of a minor feast. Well, every meal is a feast for them. Growing alicorns need their food!”

“Technically, we’re not growing anymore,” noted Six.

“Especially not you,” giggled Eight, poking fun at the fact that Six had a size and proportions that were nearly that of a stallion.

“You’re just jealous because I always get to be on top.”

“Girls, there’s no need to fight!” said Bob, laughing.

“Yeah,” said Nine, setting down the containers that she had been holding. “You all know mother always gets to be on top.”

“Not what I meant, Nine,” said Bob. “True, but not what I meant.” She reached into the box and removed what she was carrying. Scootaloo stepped back in horror when she realized that it was a severed arm. It looked nearly human, except that its skin was hairless and blue. The ragged stump at the base was still oozing thick purple blood. “A special treat! Dig in!”

Eight and Seven immediately leapt onto the table, each grabbing the arm with their teeth. Seven, despite wearing a mask that mostly covered her face, still managed to get a good grip on the blue flesh, and Scootaloo saw that her teeth were much longer, numerous, and more pointed than those of her sisters.

Six seemed more interested in what was in the metal containers, and scooped several large quantities of what appeared to be raw meat onto her plate. Salivating, she then started eating. Nine also took food from the containers, but her magic also sliced through the hand on the table and removed the thumb.

“Hey!” cried Eight, releasing the arm and causing Seven to tumble backward off the table with it still in her mouth. “I wanted the thumb!”

“You hate the hand, Eight. Besides, it’s mine now.”

“No fair!”

Seven was now tearing flesh off the base of the arm, devouring it loudly. Four watched this, mildly disgusted, and then brought over some food on a plate using her magic. Marc Antony smiled and picked up the fork, feeding the alicorn on his lap. When he tried to take the fork away, she grabbed his hand and slowly licked the meaty juices from the fork.

Bob, meanwhile, sat down between Marc Antony and Nine- -the latter of which sidled closer to her- -and poured out a large pile of white powder onto the table. She then smiled and shoved her face into it. Almost as soon as she did, she stopped moving.

“Um…is she okay?” asked Scootaloo.

“She’s fine,” said Six. “Her dopamine receptors differ substantially from the normal human phenotype. The cocaine has no effect on her.”

Bob pointed across the table. “Fuck you, Six. You have no idea how much I fucking love cocaine!”

“Did you at least actually get cocaine this time, Bob?” said Marc Antony, who was picking up a long strip of meat and wiggling it in front of Four’s nose.

Bob lifted her head. Her face was covered in white material, and she snorted loudly. She seemed to contemplate the smell for a moment, and then sighed. “Goddamn it…”

“Please tell me it wasn’t the anthrax spores this time.”

“It wasn’t the anthrax spores this time.” Bob swept the pile onto the floor in a cloud of dust and wiped off her face. Her eyes- -now once again narrowed into slits- -turned toward Scootaloo. “Come on, little wingie-pone! Sit! Eat! Or, if you prefer, get eaten.”

“She does look tasty,” said Nine. “Those little wings…”

“Nine!” said Eight, who had managed to wrestle part of the blue arm away from Seven. “You know we don’t have our guests for dinner! Well, not in that sense. It would be rude!”

“Besides,” said Bob, “Pegasus wings aren’t great unless you marinade them. Lots of little bones. And the feathers…don’t get me started on the feathers…”

Scootaloo did not ask why Bob knew what Pegasus wings tasted like, and she did not want to know why. Against her own better judgement, she moved up to the table and sat down. Eight passed a bucket of meat to her. “Do you want some? It’s very good! I think there’s some human down near the bottom…”

“Thank you,” said Scootaloo, suppressing her urge to vomit, “but I’m a herbivore.”

“Ah,” said Bob. “Then you’re one of those homosexuals, then?”

“I’m a homosexual,” said Six, raising her hoof.

“Idiot,” said Nine. “We’re ALL homosexuals.”

“She isn’t,” said Marc Antony, pointing at Four. “I checked.”

“Doesn’t count if it’s with family,” said Bob. She searched through the nearest can of meat and smiled as she pulled out a finger. She immediately began to gnaw on it. “Still. We don’t really have vegetables. They just aren’t as fun.”

“I think Oriana has a stock of standard human fare,” suggested Six. “You can ask her to share some.”

“Standard? You mean this isn’t what humans normally eat?”

“No,” said Bob. “This is totally what humans eat. I should know. I’m a human. We are definitely all cannibals.”

“We’re not,” said Six. She pointed at the arm that Seven had now moved to the table. “This is an asari arm. We are not asari. We are ponies. This, therefore, is totally natural.”

Scootaloo looked up at Marc Antony. Despite feeding Four, he was not eating any food himself.

“What about you?” asked Scootaloo.

“Me?” said Marc Antony. “I don’t eat. It’s actually disgusting.”

“Even when I do it?” said Four, feigning offense and pouting.

“Especially when you do it,” said Marc Antony, smiling.

“You don’t eat? Ever?”

“Never have, never will. I don’t have to.”

“How?”

“She doesn’t know, Marc,” said Bob. “She’s probably never even seen a synth before.”

“Synth?”

“That’s what I am,” said Marc Antony. “Despite this very expensive artificial skin, beneath, I’m all ceramic, plastic, steel, and a surprising amount of palladium. I’m a machine. I don’t need to eat.”

“Really?” said Scootaloo. She could not tell if he was lying or not, but it certainly made sense with the way his skin looked just a little bit off and the way his eyes seemed so profoundly strange despite their ostentatious normality. “A machine?”

“A very, very high quality machine,” said Four. “Every single part is custom machined down to the tenth of a nanometer and assembled with absolute care and precision.”

“And nobody knows more than Four about Marc Antony’s ‘parts’,” said Eight, who promptly dodged a rather sharp knife propelled at her by Four’s magic.

Scootaloo took a deep breath, and supposed she could accept that answer. “Which brings me to my next question…”

“No,” said Bob. “The answer is no. We don’t have catsup. We’re not communists here.”

“But I like catsup,” said Eight. She glanced up at Seven and frowned. “Quiet, you.”

“That wasn’t it,” said Scootaloo. “I meant the alicorns.”

“These?” said Bob, pointing. “Oh. They’re just my sexy pone daughters.”

“That isn’t what I meant. I mean, where did they come from?”

Bob frowned. “No. You don’t understand. I literally just told you. As in, popped each one of them out of my formerly tight, virgin vagina.”

Marc Antony immediately burst into laughter so intense that he nearly dropped Four. It culminated with him putting his head on the table, which only muffled the sound slightly.

“What?” said Bob. “It’s true.”

“You actually said….virgin…with a straight face! I can’t believe…you actually…”

“What? You can ask anyone in the galaxy. I can guarantee that you will not find a single being who has porked me.”

“Only because you bite their throats out when you climax! Which for you takes what, twenty, thirty seconds tops? When was the last time you actually a virgin, Bob?”

“Well, six months old, so…um…” she started counting on her fingers, and Scootaloo noticed that she only had eight total. Both her ring fingers had been removed.

“We actually are her daughters,” explained Six. “In the most literal of senses. Technically, we are synthetically generated- -clones, you could say- -but due to our unique biology we could not be tank-raised like humans or protheans. We had to be implanted into a living womb.”

“And Cerberus payed through the nose to use mine,” said Bob. “I mean, I literally got paid enough to buy every gun on Pandora. Which I did. And now I’m a proud mommy of lots of little horses. Though giving birth to something with wings and a horn HURTS. Like HELL. And pumping out four at a time is not pleasant.”

“Four at a time…” Scootaloo looked around the room. “But there’s five.”

Their expressions changed, especially Four, who held Marc Antony even closer. He ran his hand through her mane, comforting her.

“Yeah,” said Bob. “I did two batches of four. The first group…”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Four.

“It’s okay,” said Marc Antony. “Suffice it to say, Cerberus badly mismanaged the first batch.”

“And I blame myself for that,” said Bob, for the first time sounding serious. “But I fixed that. When I found out what they did, I ate the main scientist in charge. Not altar boy to Catholic priest eating, either. I Dahmerized him. In front of his friends. And his successor treated my next batch with the respect they deserve.”

“But that doesn’t explain why there’s no ‘Five’.”

“Oh, that. That name was already taken. So we skipped it.”

“Could you imagine?” said Six. “If I were Five? And Seven was Six?”

Seven released a hiss that Scootaloo could only assume was laughter.

“Seven?” said Scootaloo. “Do you always wear that mask?”

“She does,” said Nine. “And she doesn’t talk.”

“Oh,” said Scootaloo. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” said Eight. “It’s because she came out derped. Her eyes are- -”

Seven’s horn suddenly charged and a beam of violet light struck Eight, sparking on impact and producing a small explosion that knocked off her chair.

Bob sighed. “Are you dead, Eight?”

“Nooo,” moaned Eight, who was still smoking slightly on the floor.

“Good. Don’t make fun of Seven. She WILL kill you. And eat you. She’s the only one here who I think might actually be leaning toward cannibalism.”

“Trust me,” said Nine, “she already LOVES what each of us taste like.”

Bob flicked the tip of Nine’s horn, and Nine shivered. “Don’t be dirty at the dinner table.”

“Sorry, mom.” Nine leaned her head against Bob’s waist, and Bob ran her hand through the pony’s mane.

“Aren’t they just the cutest thing? Totally worth twenty two months of pregnancy.”

“But I still don’t understand,” said Scootaloo. “You’re not a pony. So the genetic source…” She looked at the alicorns around her. “It must have been Twilight Sparkle. How did Cerberus get that?”

“No idea,” said Bob. “None at all. I didn’t ask.”

“Cerberus has an extensive reach,” said Marc Antony, as if that was supposed to explain why Scootaloo was sitting in a room full of Twilight Sparkle clones with French accents.

“And Cerberus is, what, exactly?” asked Scootaloo.

“Marc, the spiel!” said Bob.

“I love the spiel,” said Six.

“You would,” said Nine.

“Cerberus is a quasi-military corporation dedicated to the protection of Earth and the scientific progress of human civilization,” explained Marc Antony. “You’ve met humans, I’m sure?”

“Yes,” said Scootaloo. “On Omega.”

“I love Omega,” said Bob.

“Yes…you would, Bob. But anyway, you may not realize it, but humans have only entered the galactic theater recently and are at a distinct disadvantage. We, as Cerberus employees, seek to ensure that humanity retains a competitive advantage over hostile alien races.”

“Even though she’s the only human here?” said Scootaloo, pointing at Bob.

“And even then,” said Four, “only marginally.”

Bob shrugged. “You want to know the truth, Scoots? I’m only in this for the heaping piles of dollars that they shovel at me. The whole ‘Humans First’ thing is horse shit. And I know horse shit. What is it now, Marc? Forty percent?”

“Thirty,” said Marc Antony. “Thirty percent of the Alliance population is synths.”

“Are synths,” said Four.

“No, is synths. Are synths…great, now you’ve got me confused.”

Four giggled.

“That is how we found you,” said Nine. “We were tracking that unusual starship based on intelligence we received that it might be useful to our cause.”

“We couldn’t just let you die in there, though,” said Eight. “That isn’t the Cerberus way.”

“So it morphed into a rescue mission. From the looks of it, though, that ship was something we don’t want to be dealing with. Right, Four, Six?”

“Scans indicated an almost incomprehensible structure,” said Four. “And there was an energy signal, but I have no idea what. I’m still running the post-hoc assembly calculations. The smaller ships might have been useful, but the large one…we couldn’t take it without a fleet.”

“I got some good readings inside,” said Six. “I’ll pass them to you tomorrow morning. The creatures on the inside are what intrigue me. I collected a few samples.” Seven tapped her shoulder. “Oh, and Seven ate part of one. She said it tasted very bad.”

“Do you have any thoughts, Ms. Scootaloo?” asked Marc Antony. “You were on board, after all.”

“No,” lied Scootaloo. “We have no information on it. My ship was dispatched to investigate. Which was why I was on it.”

“You failed pretty hard, then,” said Eight.

“Well, if you’re right, my crew got out safely. So it’s not a total failure.” Scootaloo paused. “My ship…I need to get back to it. My crew needs me.”

“Okay,” said Marc Antony. “I can set a course. Where is it?”

“I…” Scootaloo froze. “I don’t know…”

The meal- -if it could even be properly called one- -proceeded, and Scootaloo remained for nearly an hour until it eventually devolved into a hooffight between Eight and Seven over the last morsel of asari arm that remained, with the others pointing and laughing. That gave Scootaloo enough time to come to a conclusion about how she felt concerning them. Although they were not exactly like Twilight, Scootaloo found that she did not dislike them. They were strange and more than a little threatening, but they still seemed to be ponies at heart. She was not so sure about Marc Antony and Bob, though. Marc Antony always seemed like he knew just a little bit more than he was letting on and was somehow smug about it, and Bob, despite her grinning and wide eyes, always seemed just a little bit off. Scootaloo chalked it up to a gut feeling, but she felt like trusting Bob too much would be a bad idea.

At Four’s advice, Scootaloo departed for the lower section of the ship. Despite its slightly curved hallways and numerous rooms, the ship- -which Bob called the ‘192’- -was actually not large, and finding the engine room was only difficult in that the lower sections of the ship were not lit at all.

Eventually, though, Scootaloo managed to stumble through the darkness to the deepest part of the ship’s basement. When she reached the door, it opened automatically, and Scootaloo stepped into the blue-lit room on the other side.

Something moved on the other side. It was impossibly swift, and in the dim light Scootaloo got only the briefest glance of something thin and tall rise and retreat to the shadows at the edge of the room. Scootaloo shuddered, if only because she was not entirely aware of what it had been- -even though she was keenly aware that it had not gone far and was still watching her from the border of the room.

The tall creature had, apparently, been sitting at a small table. It had not been alone, either; sitting across from its now empty chair was the human Oriana.

“Hello?” said Scootaloo.

Oriana looked up, and then set down the sandwich she had been eating. “Scootaloo,” she said. “Come in.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” said Scootaloo.

“You aren’t,” said Oriana. “You must be starving. Here, I think I have some…yes,” she removed a plastic bowl from a package next to her and peeled off the top. “Do you like ramen? All I’ve got is the instant kind.”

“Sure,” said Scootaloo.

“I don’t have any chopsticks, though…or even a fork…”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Scootaloo, holding up one of her hooves. “I can’t use them anyway.”

“Oh. I see.”

Scootaloo pulled herself onto the chair across from Oriana. “I kind of feel bad taking his seat.”

“Oh. You mean Bjorn?” Oriana pointed to the gaunt silhouette in the shadows behind her. “Don’t be. Bjorn is not a fan of strangers. He would prefer to be somewhere where he can watch you.”

Scootaloo looked at the shadow, and felt it looking back at her. On some level, she was curious as to what Bjorn actually looked like- -but on another, she wanted nothing more than to never find out. So, instead, she turned toward the bowl of soup that had been placed in front of her. It was, apparently, literally instant, and was already steaming and warm. It smelled good, and Scootaloo suddenly remembered just how hungry she was.

“I tried eating with the others,” said Scootaloo. “It didn’t work so well.”

Oriana frowned and leaned forward. “You didn’t eat anything they offered, did you?”

“No,” said Scootaloo, surprised by the seriousness in Oriana’s voice. “Why?”

“Because it will make you sick. Very, very sick. Not to mention the moral implications…just never eat anything they give you, okay?”

“I have no desire to,” said Scootaloo. She poked her mouth into the bowl and started slurping up noodles and soup. She felt awkward doing that in front of Oriana, but she was so hungry she could not stop herself.

When she was halfway finished with the bowl, she leaned back and wiped her mouth on her hoof. “Wow, that’s good. What flavor is it?”

“Chicken.”

Scootaloo’s eyes widened, and she suddenly felt sick. “You don’t mean- -there wasn’t actually- -”

“It’s synthetic chicken,” said Oriana. “Don’t worry. I assumed that as a small horse, you were probably a vegetarian.”

Scootaloo leaned back in her chair. She looked around the room, and her eyes settled on the source of the room’s eerie blue light. In the center of the room, in what Scootaloo could only assume the engine, was an object suspended in a blue field. It appeared to be metal, but as Scootaloo watched it shifted, changing its shape repeatedly and both extending and retracting tendril-like connections to the machinery that held it. The field that suspended it was mostly colorless, but the object itself seemed to somehow leak prodigious amounts of blue light from within.

“Is that your engine?” asked Scootaloo.

Oriana looked up at it. “You could say that.”

“Do all alien ships use something like that?”

“That? No, of course not. I don’t even know what that thing is, or where Bob managed to dig it up. It’s some sort of relic.”

“A relic?”

“That’s the only way to explain it.” She turned to the darkness at her side. “Bjorn knows it better than I do.”

“A fragment of a god,” stated the figure in the darkness. The clarity in his voice was startling; Scootaloo had assumed he was not able to speak.

“Bjorn’s people apparently worshipped them eons ago.”

“We still do. And we patiently await their return…”

“And Bjorn is…what, exactly?” asked Scootaloo. “I’ve seen aliens before, but…”

“That’s not an easy question to answer. He is unique. From what I gather, he acts as a living interface to that relic. I don’t know where Bob found him, either. But they are apparently close.”

When Oriana said Bob’s name, she grimaced slightly, as if it left an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

“You don’t sound like you like her very much.”

“Is it really that apparent?”

“Kind of, yeah.”

“Well, I don’t. To put it lightly.”

“I talked to her. She doesn’t seem that bad.”

“But you noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

“You’re young, but I’m guessing you didn’t get as far as you did by being a fool. The way she looks at you, and how you always kind of want to take a step back, and not just because of the smell.”

“Yeah,” admitted Scootaloo. “I noticed it too.”

“Because that’s how she does it. Everything she told you? I can almost guarantee it’s a lie. If she doesn’t want to kill you out right, she waits. Until she can stab you in the back. She is a sadistic cannibal, and a blight on Cerberus’s good name.” Oriana sighed, and set down her sandwich. She leaned back in her chair, and looked at the engine for a long moment, watching it swirl and twist as it assumed novel forms and left them behind, progressing forward toward an incomprehensible state.

“I’m guessing you heard the synth’s spiel about Cerberus,” she said.

“I did,” said Scootaloo. “You’re an organization dedicated to protecting your homeworld. I can respect that.”

“It’s more than that, though.” Oriana paused. “Do you want to know the reason I joined Cerberus, Scootaloo?”

“Sure.”

“It’s because of my sister, Miranda. She was a Cerberus agent during the Reaper War. That was twenty two years ago.”

“You must have barely been born then,” said Scootaloo.

“Hardly. Our father built both of us with the most advanced genetic enhancements available. I’m actually close to forty now.”

“You look good for your age.”

“I know. So did Miranda. I remember her being so pretty, so confident. Not like I was at all. I was just some weak nerd…and then the War came.”

“What happened?”

“What happened? She died in my arms, Scootaloo. Killed by a rogue Cerberus agent, one who should have been her friend. Stabbed in the back. And do you know what the last thing she said to me was? She asked me to pick up where she left of, to finish what she couldn’t. To join Cerberus and protect Earth and our people in her place.”

“That’s terrible,” said Scootaloo. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” said Oriana, even though Scootaloo saw her wiping her eye discretely. “She didn’t die in vain. The War ended, and I’ve been fighting for her ever since. That’s what Cerberus is. People claim we’re xenophobic, caught in the past. But the galaxy is a dangerous place .Cerberus isn’t about hate, it’s about protecting the people we love.”

Scootaloo recalled what Bob had said before. “And Bob is only here for the money.”

Oriana frowned. “I know. And just looking at that genetic defect makes me sick. She’s the antitheses to me, to everything that Miranda wanted.”

“But you work with her. I saw it. On the Crimson Horizon, you fought together.”

“I fight with her because I have to. Times aren’t what they used to be, Scootaloo.” She sighed. “Cerberus used to be a lot stronger. Things were easier before the War. All you had to do was set up a booth somewhere in the Deep South and people would just flock to join. And then we lost so many. Brave men and women, they just died in hordes. For nothing.”

“Well, you don’t seem to have hordes on this ship. Unless I’m missing them.”

“No, it’s just us. Cerberus doesn’t do the whole ‘hordes of faceless grunts’ thing anymore. The cost was too high, and money is tight. They’ve switched to seeking out ‘special’ individuals. People with mutations, biotics, synths, even aliens. Mercenaries, assassins, criminals, terrorists. People who don’t need training and are willing to kill.” She paused. “It makes me sick…”

“And the alicorns?”

Oriana looked Scootaloo in the eye. Hers were pretty and blue. “Cerberus does what it has to. They were intended as weapons. I don’t know if you can forgive us for that, Scootaloo…”

“Trust me,” said Scootaloo. “Equestria has done so much worse to so many more ponies.” Scootaloo pointed at the shifting metal in the center of the room. “You see that? If this were Equestria, that would be a pony. They harvest them as children, fill them with implants, and put them in a ship to draw energy. Then, when they’re used up in twenty years, they poison them, dump them, and put in a new one.”

“That’s…that’s horrible,” said Oriana.

“I know,” said Scootaloo. “Welcome to the world I have to live in. When you say ‘alicorn weapons’, you just mean ‘soldiers’. At least they get to walk around and smile and laugh. The Cores normally never even get to wake up. One of my best friends is a Core, and another is a purpose-bred slave. Trust me, I’ve seen worse.”

“And you just accept that?”

“I have to. If I can’t, then there’s nothing I can do to protect them.”

“I see,” said Oriana. She smiled. “You know, maybe you and I are more similar than you think.”

“Maybe. I don’t know yet.”

“Of course. You don’t trust us.”

“No. The fact that you have a group of Twilight Sparkles doesn’t help your case, either. What I’m still not so sure on is why, exactly, you bothered to save ME. Why am I here? Why am I so important?”

Oriana paused, considering what to say next. “Frankly, you’re not. You were just part of a run-of-the-mill rescue mission. We don’t intend to use you for anything, and you’re not our prisoner.”

“I need to get back to my ship,” said Scootaloo. “We were on a critical mission, and we need to complete it. It is of critical importance that I relay my information to Princess Twilight.”

“We’ll do the best we can,” said Oriana. “If we are able, we will get you back to your ship. After all, it’s critical that Cerberus maintain a good relationship with Equestria. We’ll help you, and that’s a Cerberus promise.”

“Thanks,” said Scootaloo. She forced a smile, even though what Oriana had said did not make her feel any better.