The creature in Fluttershy’s bed moaned and turned over, its heavily-wrapped feet nearly knocking one of the posts right off the bedframe.

“Oh, there there,” the Element of Kindness cooed, most of her fear and wariness over the creature replaced with concern.  It never failed: the moment a creature of any kind fell under her wing, she couldn’t help but care for it as if it were one of her own pets.  I guess that applies to any kind of creature, no matter how strange, she thought as she directed the hummingbirds hovering nearby to replace the washcloth on the creature’s smooth, black forehead.

“Oh Celestia, if only I knew what you were!”  She sighed, “I might be able to help you then!  But so far I can just…”  As she thought aloud, she lost track of what her hooves were doing and the next thing she knew, she had bumped one of the strange black tendrils on the side of the creature’s head.

“Oops,” she quickly moved to fix her mistake, only to knock the creature’s head off entirely.  The strange, black apparatus bounced to the floor, rolling lopsidedly across the room before coming to a stop just short of the wall.

“DEAR SWEET CELESTIA!”  She screamed, rushing out the door, grabbing a roll of gauze from her bathroom cabinet, and returning to wrap what was left of the poor thing’s head, all the while shrieking at the top of her lungs: “I’MSORRYI’MSORRYI’MSORRYI’MSORRY…”

“Woah,” a raspy, yet comforting, voice said from the doorway.  “What…what is that!?”

“Rainbow Dash!”  Fluttershy screamed, pulling the only other pegasus she knew she could trust into the room.  “Thank Celestia you’re here!  I was just trying to help this poor little creature and I didn’t know how and now its head’s gone and I don’t know how to help it andeverythingisgoingwrongandnowit’sgonnadieandit’sallmyfaultand…”

“Fluttershy!”  The teal pegasus jammed a hoof into her friend’s mouth.  “Breathe.”

The little yellow pegasus obeyed, sucking in small bursts of air around Rainbow’s hoof and sighing.

“Better?”

Fluttershy nodded.

“Good.  Now,” Rainbow pulled her hoof away and trotted to the creature’s side. “What is this thing and why is it in your bed?”

“Well, I found it in the woods, and at first I didn’t know what to do, but it was pretty obvious the poor little darling was hurt, so I had to take it in.  Only,” she sniffled, tears welling up in her eyes, “Only I made it worse!  It’s head just popped right off and now the poor dear’s going to die and it’s all my…”

“Woah!  Wheredja get the cool helmet!?”  Rainbow gasped, swooping right over the creature’s body and grabbing the “head” in the corner.  Grinning, she pulled it on, only to have it slump down over her eyes.  “Aww, it’s too big!  Jeez, whoever wore this must’ve been a giant!”

Fluttershy watched her friend, her jaw scraping the floor.  “H-helmet?”

“Yeah!  Oooh, it’s got so many cool gadgets wired to it though!  Twilight would have a field day with…wait,” she pulled the black casing off her head and eyed Fluttershy.  “Did you think this thing was its head?”

Fluttershy nodded bashfully.

“You big goof!” Rainbow laughed before jamming the thing back on her head.  “Oh man, lookit all this stuff!  What’s this knob over here…”  Turning the knob on the helmet’s side with her hoof, Rainbow Dash was nearly knocked over by a loud blast of static.  

“So, you’re saying that was just the creature’s head protection?”  Fluttershy asked timidly.

“Huh!?”  Rainbow hollered as she pulled the helmet off and twisted the knob back to the off position.  “Oh yeah, it’s fine, Fluttershy!  Trust me: head’s don’t come off that easy.”

“Oh, good,” well, now she just felt kind of silly.  Of course that thing was a helmet; it was too artificial to be anything else!  Still, that didn’t explain the weird fabric she’d found it in, or what this creature was.  

As if on cue, another pony burst through the door.  “Where is it!?”  Twilight Sparkle blurted as she barged into the room.  Still playing with her helmet, Rainbow Dash simply nodded towards the bed.

“Hey, Fluttershy,” the purple unicorn said passively as she galloped past on her way to the bed.

“Oh, hello Twilight…”

“Couldja hold this for me while I set my things up?”  Twilight interrupted as she tossed a labcoat over Fluttershy’s head.  “Thanks.”

“Oh, s-sure Twilight, but what things do you need to set up?”  The little yellow pegasus asked as she shrugged the labcoat off her head and threw it over her back.

“Why, the equipment I’ll need for the testing, of course!  APPLEJACK!”  She called, and a certain orange-colored earth pony trotted in, tugging a wagon loaded down with more heavy electronic equipment than Fluttershy would have thought could possibly fit into a little, red Radio Flyer.

“Whew!”  AJ gasped.  “Ah dunno whatcha think this stuff’ll do fer Fluttershy there, Twi.  But I hope it’s worth…” her eyes fell on the bed, and widened.  “Now, what in tarnation is that thing!?”

“That’s why I asked Twilight over,” Fluttershy explained.  “I found the poor dear in the forest, wrapped in some kind of strange cloth.”

“Cloth?  Oh, dahling, I hope you kept it!”  Rarity said as she trotted in daintily.  “Celestia knows when one might need a bit of fabric lying around, and it can be so much cheaper to…I say, where did you find the shaved monkey?”

This time, Fluttershy just shrugged and nudged Twilight.

“Oh, I haven’t a clue what it is or where it came from!  But I intend to find out,” the purple unicorn replied as she turned to her machine and pulled out a bundle of wires attached to sensors.  However, before she could begin the process of sticking the little paper sensors onto every inch of exposed skin she could find, Pinkie Pie shot in with a series of blaring trumpets, confetti bursting into the room just behind her.

“Girls!  Time to welcome a new friend!”  She screamed, readying a pair of drums strapped to herself.  “Where is he!?”

“Um…” Twilight said.  Pinkie instantly locked on the bed and backflipped off the ground, landing right on the creature’s chest.  It groaned as the air was knocked right out of its body and Pinkie started her song: “WELCOME!  WELCOME!  WELCOME!  WE’RE GLAD YOU’RE FINALLY HEEEEERREE!  JUST YOU AND ME, PINKIE!  OUR LOVELY LIT-tle…dear…” she finally looked down at what she was standing on, then back at all her friends.  “Girls?  What is this thing?”  

“We don’t know, Pinkie, that’s what I was about to find out.”  Twilight replied patiently.

“Oh,” she said, looked back down to the creature’s strange, misshapen, bandage-covered head one last time before shrieking and throwing herself off the bed.  “RARITY!”

“No, not again…” Rarity moaned before her friend’s little, pink flank smacked her to the ground.  Both girls landed with a loud thump, after which Pinkie started screaming some more.

“Pinkie.”  Twilight said, now struggling to keep her patience.

“AIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…”

“Pinkie!”  Twilight was most definitely annoyed now.

“…EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…”

“PINKIE!”

“…AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH – what?”

“Are you done?”

“Hold on – AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH - okay.”

“Good, now, before there are any more interruptions…” Twilight turned back to the bundle of wires by her hoof.  With a few, swift movements, the unicorn had a couple dozen sensors attached to the creature’s skin and every machine in her wagon running.

After a few minutes of beeping and whirring, the wagon-based computer bank spat out a long roll of paper, which Twilight studied.  “Hmm…interesting…” she mumbled.

“What is it, Twi?”  AJ asked.

“Well, according to these scans, this creature still has a very high level of brain activity, consistent with somepony who’s…dreaming.”

“Good Heavens!”  Rarity gasped, throwing Pinkie off herself, “Are you saying this thing is capable of dreaming!?”

“I can’t say for certain yet, but these scans are showing me the kind of activity most animals aren’t capable of.”

“So it’s smart?”  AJ asked.

“Again, I can’t say that with any kind of certainty, but…” Twilight shrugged, “It could be a reasonable assumption to make.  Hold on…”  Thinking on her hooves, the little purple unicorn pulled one of the creature’s arms from beneath the bedspread and studied its cloth sleeve carefully, pulling out a magnifying glass.  “Rarity, could you come over here and tell me what you see?”

Curious, the white unicorn trotted up to her friend’s side and shoved her face into the magnifying glass.  “Oh my, I’ve never seen I’ve never seen stitching like this!  It’s beyond precise!”  She exclaimed after a moment, her eyes widening in shock.

“Hmm,” Twilight nodded, scratching her chin with her hoof.  Head hunched in thought, she crossed the room to where Rainbow Dash sat and stole the helmet from off her friend’s head.

“Heyyy…”

Twilight ignored her friend’s complaints and focused on the helmet in her hooves, turning it over, looking at it from every possible angle.

“You wanna clue us in on whatcha got there, Twi?”  Applejack asked.

Twilight simply nodded, hoofing the helmet back to Rainbow Dash before continuing: “Girls, based on what I’ve seen so far, I think it would be safe to conclude this creature is not of this world.”

“You mean…” Pinkie Pie gasped, “THEY have finally landed!?  EEP!  I KNEW IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE THEY CAME BACK FOR ME!”

“Now, hold up,” AJ raised a hoof for some calm.  “You’re not sayin’ we got ourselves a real, honest-to-Celestia alien on our hooves, are ya?”

“I don’t know, but between the high-levels of brain activity and the incredible amount of technology in that helmet,” Twilight shrugged in Rainbow’s direction as the little cyan pegasus shocked herself on one of the many devices wired into the helmet.  “I think we can safely say this creature is from some sort of different civilization, with a technological capability far beyond our own.”

“A true, sophisticated civilization!?”  Rarity gasped, “Oh, to learn the culture of otheh worlds!  What mahvelous things can this creature do, I wonder?”

At that moment, a deep rumble emanated from the bed, catching everypony’s attention.  Rainbow Dash laid the helmet on the ground and started hovering, ready to charge the bed as Applejack bowed her head and stood ready to back her up.  Everypony else backed cautiously away, giving the pair a clear path to the bed if needed.

Then a rotten stench filled the room, forcing them all to turn away and cough.  

“Ugh, dreadful!”  Rarity gasped, preparing a pillow for a fainting spell.

“Some sort of…defense mechanism?”  Twilight wondered aloud, pinching her nose shut with her hoof.

“Naw, li’l guy must’ve had some beans ‘fore landin’ here in Equestria,” AJ replied, waving the stench away with her hat.  

“Oh, Applejack!  That’s so crude!”  Rarity choked, her nose wrinkling derisively.

“What?  Ah grew up with an older farmhand fer a bro, Ah know what a fart smells like!”

“But we still don’t know for sure if it was…”

“Why don’t you just ask him what happened?”  Pinkie asked.

All eyes turned to the bed.  The creature was sitting up. Next Chapter: Chapter III: Brunch with Frienemies Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours