~Canterlot Castle guard barracks, 10:39 PM, Year 1002~
Luna watches as the guards rush to and fro with an urgency she has not seen in a millennia, especially unicorns in solar gold armor that bare a stylized shield insignia on their front rather than the standard star, a team of shielding and barrier specialists if she remembered correctly.
The moon deity couldn’t help but frown, If Celestia had whole corps of specialized forces just waiting around as auxiliary then why were the Elements the first to be called in times of crisis? Something’s not right…
”And why would this be different…?” Luna asks herself under her breath, referring to the meteor strike.
Luna shakes her head, scattering her nebulous mane about before it reforms an instant later. Celestia had been in charge of Equestria for a thousand years, she knew what she was doing.
With a start, Luna realizes all the guards had taken their equipment and already moved out to chariots and carriages set for Ponyville.
”I mustn’t be late…” And with that Luna concentrates a sliver of her vast, ocean-worth of magic into her horn, gently kneading and molding the volatile energy with skill matched only by her sister into a shape more to her desires. In a light hum, the magic seeps out of her horn and runs down her body like an invisible silky oil, saturating her flesh in her own lifeforce, right before Luna seizes control over it once more.
Vibrations, ever so slight take grip of her mortal shell, forcing her body to come apart from the seams at their most base level, sending countless billions of atoms, all of them Luna to detach from each other yet still be connected by threads of magic so infinitely thin that some would say they were never there at all.
The cloud of atoms shiver, still held imperiously by the mind and soul of Luna before they rush out to the airfields at a fraction of the speed of light, where they would reform into the indigo alicorn, passing through every solid harmlessly along the way.
The whole process from start to finish takes roughly a twentieth of a second. An outside observer would have never seen or even understood the intricate and frightening beauty that weaving a teleportation spell with pinpoint control holds, to them, Luna would have been there one second, and gone the next. No kicked up dust, no blur of moment.
~Outside the crash site, 10:47 PM, Year 1002~
”Girls! Be serious! For all we know this could change Equestria.”
”Rrrrigghhht… Keep telling yourself that egghead…”
Twilight lets out a frustrated groan as she, Rainbow, Applejack, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rarity steadily made their way to the crash site of the meteor, the dirt clods and bits of upturned earth thrown about telling her that they were getting closer to the hill.
”Really darling,” Begins Rarity “I can’t possibly see how all the hub-bub about a space rock could be worthy of waking me from my beauty sleep.” She finishes distastefully as she pulls hair curlers from her somewhat disheveled mane.
Rainbow Dash snorts before elbowing Applejack and not-so-subtly whispering “Yeah, she needs it am I right?”
Rarity, who is right in front of them, rounds about, furious “What did you say!?!”
Before an argument can break out however, Pinkie pops up between them, her grinning mouth already set to rapid-fire.
”Oh my gosh girls! This is so cool! I bet it’ll look super neeto like a tiny moon! It wasn’t so neeto when it hit the ground and went BOOOOM and woke the whole town... But since everyone is awake we can have a-Omf!”
Pinkie is cut off and subsequently forced to take a breath as Applejack plants a hoof in her mouth.
”Ease up Sug’, we’re jus’ here to take a gander at tha rock to make sure there ain’t nothing bad ahoof.” Applejack says with a roll of her eyes.
”Pfft! But that’s kinda boring, OH! What if it’s ALIENS?” Rainbow exclaims with excitement “That would be SO cool!” She says, her voice cracking some at the end.
”I hope it’s not aliens…” Fluttershy says quietly with a shiver, speaking up for the first time.
Now it was Twilight’s turn to roll her eyes “Rainbow, be realistic, there is no such thing as aliens.”
Rainbow’s jaw drops “What!? Just last week you said that there had to be planets out there with aliens on them.”
”Actually I said there had to be planets somewhere in the universe with LIFE on them. They would need to come here to be considered aliens.” The violet magus replies with a raised eyebrow.
”How come there can’t be aliens here then?” Pinkie asks with a tilt of her head.
Twilight sighs and thinks to herself for a moment “For starters they would need some means of space travel. One that could withstand the vacuum of space, resistant to collision of materials floating in empty space, and be fast enough to make the trip between 2 habitable planets without the pilot expiring by some means. The biggest problems lay with the last point, otherworldly life could vary so much that there could be no other habitable planets for a particular species, and to make a trip within a reasonable timeframe would mean that the spacecraft would have to move faster than light, which is an impossibly” Twilight says with certainty.
Rainbow just gives Twilight a bemused look “I’ll be honest Twi, I didn’t listen to half of that, just give me the odds of this thing being an alien ship”
The unicorn gives her fellow element a glare before putting a hoof to her chin in thought “Well, I would say one in…in…”
She blinks “I can’t even think of a number that high”
”Then wh-!!!”
Rainbow stops mid sentence, her ears perking up and swiveling around “You girls hear anything funny?”
WHOOSH!!!
All six mares cringe and almost duck as a carriage pulled by a team of pegasi guards rushes by overhead, much lower to the ground than they usually are.
”What-!”
Several more chariots and carriages filled with personnel and unknown cargo fly by, even a large gilded one holding Princesses Celestia and Luna, all of them heading to the destroyed hill. All of them just stare silently as the train of vehicles lower themselves a distance away, the sounds of orders and scrambling hooves breaking the silence not even a moment later.
Fluttershy audibly gulps a lump in her throat “Girls? I really don’t like this…” she says in a trembling voice. Silently, all of them share the sentiment.
Twilight however snaps out of the spell the unusual sight but over everyone “Come on everypony, this is no time to just stand around! Whatever this is, it must be serious! And we can’t shirk our duty to Equestria, what if the princesses need us? We’ve saved the world twice before and this can’t be that dangerous.” Twilight finishes with a flourish and a face set into determination as she turns to the direction of the crash site.
Her words, shining with conviction, rouse her friends from their own thoughts With a collective glace at each other, the five follow their friend and de-facto leader.
~Crash site, 10:55 PM, Year 1002~
The very instant the first transport touches the ground a squad of unicorns, horns already sparking with arcane power, jump out and hop into formation with precision born of hard training. Some don’t even wait for their flying transportation to land, instead opting to make the fall to earth, landing with the thunderous ‘thud’ of their bodies absorbing the shock, and shrugging it off without even a backwards glance. Eight teams of four all stand stoically in front of the metal anomaly, waiting for orders.
”Stallions! Assume dome formation!” a male voice call from behind them.
Without a word they all hurry to fulfill the order, running to evenly spaced points around the impact zone, horns lowered and humming with barely restrained magic.
The sound of hoof-falls cut through the area as none other than Shining Armor walks calmly up to the circle of guards. Or at least he looks calm on the outside, as confused thoughts swim within the Head Captain’s mind, all of them centered on the odd metal meteor within the crater before him.
Why would Princess Celestia be so worried over space junk? Nopony got hurt in it rather violent landing, and despite being somewhat unnerving to look at it seems harmless.
Shining sighs and rubs his head with a hoof; it’s not his place to question the crown no matter how much he wants to.
Turning his eyes back to his formation of guards, he prepares his instructions “Ready!?”
”Yes sir!” a chorus of voices call out
”Begin standard containment!”
Lowering their heads, the horns of the guards spark and crackle with potent, multicolored energy, filling the site with a display of dancing lights. With a sound not unlike arcing electricity, the violent currents of magic bolt up to a central point over the wreckage, evenly yet slowly falling around the meteor in a curtain of green translucent energy.
Shining, seeing that the operation is complete, takes a quick look over the dome now around the object and nods his approval.
”Excellent work, now maintain it.” The captain says with a hint of pride.
Some of the younger guards preen under the praise, while the others barely even acknowledge it.
Shining aims his own horn up and sends out a white, whistling flare into the sky, signaling the science teams and the Princesses that it’s reasonably safe to approach. In a medley of hoof-falls and hurried voices, the lab coat clad spooks from Canterlot University rush onto the scene from the other carriages that landed away from the area, all sorts of different technical equipment held in various colored magic auras.
Shining runs his eyes over the hastily set up equipment, hardly knowing what is what and why they would be needed in the first place, but once more, it’s not his place to question a matter such as this.
Walking last into the area is Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and a blue unicorn sporting a lab coat who is talking to the alicorns with ease, Crescent Sparkle, the father of both Twilight Sparkle, Shining Armor, and the head astronomer of Canterlot University.
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to say your majesties; even though it seems harmless unknown bacteria could have survived the heat and impact of re-entry, and we could be faced with an epidemic should this be handled carelessly.” Crescent says carefully.
Luna seems aghast at the prospect, but Celestia just nods, her usual aloof expression not changing in the slightest, her single exposed eye focused on the metal construct in the remains of the hill.
”Princess!” A young voice calls out behind the small group.
All three turn to see Twilight along with the rest of the Elements running to catch up to them, obviously worried over the recent commotion.
Celestia can’t help but feel a minuscule smile creep onto her face at the sight of her lavender hued protégé. Celestia leans her swan-like neck down to nuzzle Twilight, who returns the gesture as she walks up. The rest of the elements give Celestia and Luna short bows, sans Pinkie who didn’t seem to be taking the whole situation seriously. Once done with Celestia, Twilight happily trots up to Crescent and nuzzles him in greeting as well.
Backing up to stand with her friends, Twilight takes the initiative on the conversation “So, do we know what we’re dealing with here?”
Luna shakes her head “Neigh, all we are aware of is that the object fell to earth with no control.”
Celestia bites her lip, wanting to share her theory but not wanting to cause panic. She glances over to the metal abnormality, knowing exactly what it really is, the only question now is how will it’s occupant react to the attention it’s going to get?
Meanwhile Crescent walks up past some detection equipment to the line where the barrier is being powered by the guards, pointing his horn at it and running a detection spell…Air is still getting through, and none of it is being filtered...That will not do, not at all.
”Barrier Squad!” barks Crescent “Set yourselves to contain and, or destroy all foreign bacteria and contaminates.”
”Yes sir!” Every one of the unicorn guards holding up the energy dome cry, the glow of their horns intensifying. With a tooth rattling hum of power, the dome around the metal construct goes from a soothing green to light red, making the cool night air around it fizzle angrily.
”Professor Crescent wait!” A portly unicorn in a labcoat urges as he runs up “We can’t destroy the micro-organic samples we could collect from the object! It would be…” his words die in his mouth from the venomous glare Crescent levels him with.
”Don’t. Question. Me. One more time and you’ll be doing intern work until your hooves bleed, got me?” Crescent growls out, making the other unicorn gulp in fear and nod quickly.
Watching the overweight pony quickly slink away, Rainbow elbows Twilight and whispers to her “Man, your dad is a hardass.”
The young magus turns to her cyan friend, affront written on her face “Rainbow!”
She just shrugs “Just saying, I don’t see why the eggheads are so worked up over space germs.”
”We “eggheads” are worked up about this because this has the potential to spiral out of control if we weren’t, who knows what sort of malignant diseases an object from deep space could have? ” Crescent loudly says from his place over by some sensor equipment, having overheard Rainbow.
The speedster has the decency to look sheepish, making Twilight and the other elements giggle.
”Professor!”
The unicorn stallion sighs and turns to an intern rushing up to him from another sensor array.”What is it this time?” He asks, exasperated.
”Professor Sparkle, we just got the results of the scan we did on the object and well…” the intern looks away nervously.
”And?”
The intern gulps and looks back to Crescent “Professor, we detected life signs within it.”
The head scientist rolls his yellow eyes “Precisely why the barrier was put up, to keep bacteria in.”
”No no sir! What I mean is…there is a SINGLE something in it…something alive.”
…What?
Crescent blinks in surprise, before looking at the sweating intern with a skeptical eye, as if daring him to say more ”…Show me.”
It seems the intern’s outburst was overheard by others, as Twilight, several other scientists, and even Celestia and Luna make their way to the wire-infested equipment the young unicorn intern lead Crescent to.
The poor unicorn just got more flustered by the multitude of heads looking over his shoulder at the sensors, which flashes with different graphs and readings, all centered on the fallen object.
”W-w-well” The unicorn takes a nervous breath “After we managed to get some advanced scanning spells within it, we picked up a disturbing amount of brainwaves and other neural activity, akin to an average pony.”
Silence settles over the group, before Celestia breaks it, her voice not betraying her underlying worry in the slightest. ”My little pony, are you sure this just isn’t a malfunction of the scanning array? Or perhaps you scanned a pony nearby by mistake?” The sun goddess asks, her gaze boreing into his skull
He shakes so violently that he looks ready to seize at any moment, before Celestia takes her eye off of him after realizing what she was doing. Calming some, the intern returns to the matter at hand “I-I’m sure Your Majesty, I double checked before I went to get the professor.”
”So that means… “ Twilight trails off
”It means that today is going to be a changing day for Equestria.” Luna finishes for her, not bothering to hide the awe in her voice. If Luna were totally honest with herself, the thought of life out beyond her stars, utterly different than what they have on Equis, thrills her to no end. How different would they be? What would they eat? How advanced could they be? Would they be friendly? All of it raced around her head with dizzying speed, the thirst for knowledge not of this world overtaking her.
Twilight meanwhile was having a similar train of thought; whatever is in the newly confirmed vessel must be of an advance race, one with so many secrets of the universe to share.
Celestia however, was not taking the news of the potential visitor as well as her sister and student. She had lived so long that she had the time to come up with a plan of action for almost everything, Nightmare Moon, Discord, and her plan for Sombra’s eventual escape was shaping up nicely, all of it done to the best interest of her ponies, but this…There are too many variables, too many unknowns; there was no possible way to have a contingency for the encounter of alien life. The ivory alicorn sighs inaudibly, she could just be blowing this whole this out of proportion, but it never hurts to be careful.
Turning her head to the formation of guards she issues an order to stand down. ”Guards! Drop the barrier and step away from the object, assume non-threatening stances! That is not a meteor, but an alien craft.”
Gasps of fright and amazement, break out in the site as all of the guards look at each other in confusion, as if hoping for an answer on the face of another, before cutting the feed of magic to the fizzling dome and stepping back several paces. The shield fades, the crackle it produced going with it, leaving the area soundless save for the wind whistling through nearby trees. The quiet is not long however before frantic beeps from the intern’s sensors cut through the air.
Looking over the new readings, the unicorn’s eyes widen in untold alarm “Professor! Princess! Sudden spike in neural activity!”
Crescent pushes him out of the way as he looks over the machine himself, his face going pale under his fur as it dawns on him just what’s going on.
”Dad? What’s wrong?” Twilight asks concededly from behind him.
The astronomer just looks at the readings as he mumbles to himself “…It was unconscious before…”
All the ponies around him perk their ears up, trying to listen to Crescent.
Celestia decides to dig “If you would repeat that Mr. Sparkle, then I would be thankful.” She says, making use of her motherly voice and suggesting form of order.
He looks back at them “The old readings we had? That said it had as much brain activity as a normal pony? As it turns out, the alien was unconscious at the time, now that it’s awake, we’ve got an accurate reading on it’s brainpower and it’s boasting impressive numbers…”
”Why’s that a big deal?” Asks Rainbow as she flutters up to the group with the other elements in tow, all of them now interested in the proceedings.
Rarity rolls her eyes “It’s of obvious concern Rainbow, although I’m not one for scientific jargon it must mean that our guest is of high intelligence,”
”So…the alien is an egghead?” Rainbow lets her shoulders slump “Lame!”
”Rainbow…that’s not very nice, what if you hurt it’s feelings?” Fluttershy asks, her usual kind nature showing even in the defense of someone she doesn’t know.
Celestia just shakes her head at their not realizing just how dangerous an intellectually capable creature such as this is. ”Actually my little ponies, Fluttershy has the correct idea on the matter.” Celestia says looking over all of them. Seeing some confusion directed back at her, the princess elaborates “Girls, this is a situation that must be handled with the utmost tact and care, we cannot afford to offend the visitor for doing so has unknown consequences.”
All of the Elements spare a glance at one another.
”An what if the critter turns out to be ornery? What do we do then?” Applejack ask with a distrusting look at the still unmoving ship.
”If all goes as I hope it will then it will not come to that.” Celestia says gently, she opens her mouth to say more but is cut off by a heavy footfall. Another, the sound of a heavy hoof on metal sounds throughout the area.
Wait metal?
All heads turn to the ship, which the sound is coming from.
”Quickly girls! Come with us!” Celestia urges as she and Luna trot up to the rim of the crater. Although Twilight, Pinkie, and Rainbow Dash eagerly follow, Applejack and Rarity come only reluctantly, dragging an almost petrified Fluttershy with them.
All of them stop a the rim of the crater, in plain sight of a door on the side of the vessel, where loud footsteps grow closer
…clang…
”Remember my little ponies…” Celestia begins, her voice as soothing as a lullaby
…clang…
”You are about to make history once more…”
…Clang…
”Only this time, it will without a doubt be your greatest…”
…Clang…
Just how grave the situation is begins to settle over them, killing the enthusiasm of the group.
Clang…
”But you all are the Elements of Harmony…”
Clang…
”Nopony is as suited for this as you six are…”
Clang.
The tension is growing so thick that Fluttershy has to choke back a gasp.
Clang.
”So chin up, show our guest your best…
Clang!
Everyone’s eyes are glued to the door, even if they don’t want them to be.
Clang!
”We are about to experience the greatest change to the world ever seen…”
CLANG!
”I know that you girls can do it…”
CLANG!
”So prepare yourselves…”
…
No one can move, hardly even breathe. The door hisses in a shrill keen as the ship depressurizes. Then it slowly swings open…
CLANG!