> Encounters
>  by Dai Kirai
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Sleeping Dogs
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        It was a brisk winter day in Ponyville, and the streets were still clean. The first snow of the season had been scheduled for the next week. It was relatively quiet with only the sounds of other ponies milling about and talking. The birds had already headed south and the rest of the animals had finished their winter preparations and were currently hibernating. School had just gotten out and all the little fillies and colts were running home or off with each other to play; except for Diamond Tiara, who was happily trotting to an abandoned building on the outskirts of Ponyville. Diamond Tiara was a pale pink earth pony filly with a white and plum stripped mane and light blue eyes. She had a diamond tiara on her head and a matching cutie mark on her hip. She had no idea why it was abandoned, just that it was. She thought it had something to do with laying lines, but didn’t really care since that was stuff for unicorns not earth ponies like herself. 

She had found a mysterious book on her doorstep that morning while leaving for school. It was a big black book and it was engraved with a weird star shape within a circle on it. The star looked like it was a five pointed star with another five pointed star as one of its legs. The book itself seemed extremely old and was bound in actual leather. Nopony used leather since it was considered barbaric to use the skin of another pony just to cover a book. She quickly put it in her saddlebags and headed off for school. She would look at it at later at school. Somepony had left the book there for her to find, she was always the first to leave in the mornings and something about the book just called out to her, urging her to read it.
        During her recess Diamond Tiara found a bench on the playground and put her bags on the ground next to it. She climbed up onto the bench, setting the book beside her so she could look it over. It was old with the pages looking cracked and yellowed. The pages smelled musty and she could barely make out the words because it was in such an old dialect of Equestrian. Looking through the book and at the pictures and descriptions of each creature, she realized it was a guide for summoning demons. She went through the rest of the pages to find the scariest looking one she could from what they looked like, but not one that was truly disgusting like that one on the last page she looked at. The creature had a body shaped like a cone, the head of a lizard that contained really sharp teeth and a head of tentacles. That thing wasn’t nearly scary enough and only turned her stomach. She wanted revenge against the Cutie Mark Crusaders for their continued humiliation of her. She still hadn’t gotten over how she was ignored at her own cuteceniera because of them, or being forced to wear that stupid bunny suit, or nearly getting fired from the newspaper. With a demon, even if it didn’t respond to her, it could at least scare them into not messing with her again; and she could plant the book in their clubhouse afterwards. 
Summoning a demon was probably safer than some of the other things the CMC, as they liked to be called, had attempted in trying to get their cutie marks. Looking at the instructions she came upon her first problem: she needed the help of a unicorn. The unicorn didn’t have to know how to cast magic; they just needed the basic ability to use it. Additionally, the spell required a blood red gem as the focal point and also did the actual work of pulling out the magical energy and forming it into the proper patterns. The book stated that the gem had to be flawless and that the unicorn using the gem would be at risk of death due to the spell having the ability to pull out all of their magical energy; as well as use their life as an added source of power in case the unicorn didn’t have access to enough magic so that the spell could still be performed. She read a little more and the book stated that the only risk was to the unicorn casting and to make sure they had a proper magical foundation to avoid the risk of death.  After going through a few more pages she found just the right demon. Now she thought I just need to find a unicorn that I can get to perform the spell. After thinking for a few minutes Diamond Tiara knew just the pony to look for.
        After putting the book back into her saddle bags and putting the bag onto her back she sets out to look for the needed unicorn. She eventually found the blonde-maned, pale orchid-hued unicorn with dark golden eyes out in the playground with a small red ball. “Hey Dinky, I need your help on a project after school.” Diamond Tiara called out to her as she trotted over to the other filly with a saccharine sweet smile on her face. 
        The unicorn looked up at the approaching earth pony worriedly. “But I have to wait here for my sister to pick me up after class.” Dinky replied nervously. Her sister, Sparkler, wouldn’t be happy if Dinky made her wait around. Diamond Tiara was never nice to her, not unless she wanted something; and if Diamond Tiara wanted something it normally turned out bad for other ponies.
        Diamond Tiara could tell Dinky was suspicious of her. ”But just think, this may give you your cutie mark, and we can tell Cheerilee where we are going and she can tell your sister.” She assured. 
        Dinky thought for a moment, this could get her into a lot of trouble. She hesitantly shook her head and replied, “I still don’t think I should go with you.” She was worried; she had never stood up to the bully before. As the bully walked closer and closer Dinky started  to back up from her, but the pink earth pony could see the uncertainty in the young filly’s eyes and the weakness they showed. 
        Diamond Tiara was running out of patience, she stomped forward and slammed her hoof down on the ground. “Listen here: you will help me with this project, which will take less than thirty minutes, or I will make sure you never enjoy another recess ever again.” Diamond Tiara threatened. She was more than willing to do whatever it took to get Dinky to either help, or regret it for the rest of her life. Dinky knew all too well that it was not an empty threat. After a few minutes of being stared down by the more aggressive pony, Dinky agreed to help Diamond Tiara with her ‘project’. It was the only way Dinky saw to avoid the ire of the pink earth pony. Diamond Tiara smiled at Dinky then gave her some bits and proceeded to give Dinky her instructions on her part of the assignment. 
“First, use those bits and buy the largest red gem they have at the jewelry store or stop by Carousel Boutique-” she shuddered at the thought of that garish building “-if the jewelry store doesn’t have a big one.” She looked to make sure that Dinky paid attention and continued with her instructions. “Remember, no imperfections! This won’t work if the gem isn’t perfect. Second, after you get the gem, you will bring it to the old abandoned house on the opposite end of town.” Dinky started to ask a question but was cut off before she could finish the first word. “And if you have any questions I will answer them there.”
“Alright, it’s time to come back inside my little ponies. Recess is over and we need to finish up this lesson so you can all go home for the day.” She could hear their schoolteacher enthusiastically say from inside the cherry red schoolhouse. Diamond Tiara happily watched as the tiny unicorn ran back to the schoolhouse with all the other ponies. 

        Diamond Tiara entered the darkened house confidently; she was excited and couldn’t wait to get started. There was dust covering every surface of the house’s interior from the wooden floor, to the counter and cabinets. Dust even covered the moldy yellow curtains that were covering the windows. The walls were bare plaster and the exposed beams on the ceiling were beyond dirty. Normally, she would have done something like this at her own house, but if something went wrong with the spell or the demon arriving, she didn’t want it to damage her nice home or for this to come back on her. Besides, a little dust wouldn’t hurt the spell. She set the book down in the middle of the floor, wanting lots of space for the demon to arrive in. She then put some candles she had brought with her around the room to provide illumination so she could read the book without having to open up or even touch the curtains. Now all she had to do was to wait for the pathetic little unicorn to come with the gem so they could get started. 
Diamond Tiara didn’t have to wait long as she heard a knocking on the front door. Her hooves clopped on the wooden floors as she made her way over to the door. She opened it up knowing the only pony that would come here, let alone knock, would be her unwitting accomplice. 
        “Get in here! You didn’t have to knock, it’s only us two.” Diamond Tiara stated tersely. “Did you bring the gem?” She asked as the unicorn walked into the room to join her.
            Dinky pulled the gem out of her saddle bags but chose not to say anything, just wanting to get this over with so she could go home. “Good.” Diamond Tiara said, pleased that it looked perfect. “Now sit down on this side of the book next to me and hold the gem up to your horn. Just focus on the gem and the spell will do all the work for you.” She assured Dinky who still looked nervous but was making no move to leave or rat her out. They moved over to sit in front of the book with their backs to the door. Diamond Tiara could hardly hold in her excitement any longer. This was it, she thought the moment she would get her revenge on those three blank flanks and anyone else that had sided with them over her. Dinky held the gem up to her horn using her hoof since she still couldn’t use her magic yet. She screwed her eyes shut in concentration while Diamond Tiara began to recite the incantation.
        "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" the pink earth pony read from the inscription inside of the book. The words echoed around the house after she recited them. Diamond Tiara jumped as the sound of the echoes came back to her from nowhere. She looked over at Dinky, who was practically crying with the gem still touching her horn. But, the book instructed her to keep reciting the passage until “it” appeared and she was too close to stop now. So what if a little blank flank is scared? The pink pony pondered. "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" She recited again. Diamond Tiara could feel the magic going from Dinky and into the gem. The gem started glowing from the inside and the light started to dim in the house even though the curtains over the windows had holes in them and the candles were still burning. Diamond Tiara suddenly heard Dinky next to her, whimpering and wanting to stop saying that she was scared and that it was making her feel funny. But Diamond Tiara was almost there, and she wouldn’t stop now just because the pansy was scared and wanted to go home. "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" Diamond Tiara chanted once more. This time she stoped to look at the gem. She’s shocked the magic pulsing out of the gem was palpable and dark. It seemed to absorb all light that came near it. Diamond Tiara tried to run; this was too much for her, but her hooves wouldn’t move from their spot on the floor. She tried again and again, but each time her legs wouldn’t respond to her. She saw out of the corner of her eye the gem started to spark and sputter against Dinky’s horn, but the unicorn was unconscious and the gem held itself in position against Dinky’s horn. She never even heard the other filly cry out for help or from pain. She failed to notice; however, the aura around Dinky’s horn. Normally when a unicorn is casting magic, a translucent aura covered their horn in a color similar to their coat color. The aura around Dinky’s horn though was blood red and pulsing.
         A white circle started to appear in front of Diamond Tiara, slowly at first. She didn’t even know when it had first appeared, but it was currently two feet across. The circle was completely flat and levitated itself vertically off the ground and gave off a faint glow. Every one of her senses told her to run anywhere so long as it wasn’t here, but her body wouldn’t respond to her. She couldn’t even scream out in terror, she couldn’t even get her tongue to move in her mouth. Her body started to shake as a low rumble began to resonate from the floating circle in front of her. She couldn’t help but to wonder if it was a void, a thing of pure emptiness or malevolence since everything about the circle just felt wrong to her. 
        Out of the corner of her eye Diamond Tiara could see a crack that was running down the side of the gem. There was a small imperfection in the gem that all eyes had missed. She didn’t know if this was a good or a bad thing. She started to hope that it would cause the spell to stop, she really wanted it to stop now. She noticed the crack in the gem just as a giant green claw started to stick out of the void. She tried to close her eyes, she didn’t want to see this creature anymore, and she just wanted it all too just stop. To her horror she found that she couldn’t close her eyes and had to watch as the demon came forth into Equestria. She started to think that Dinky was lucky to be unconscious for this. Diamond Tiara finally realized why the book was bound in leather. She wanted to cry but the tears wouldn’t come and her voice wouldn’t respond to her body’s want to whimper and cry and scream for help. The gem suddenly started to spark at a faster rate, sending out stray bolts of magic in every direction. Each strike would put a burn mark on whatever they hit. Several missed her by scant inches. 
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" She heard reverberate once more around the room. This wasn’t coming from any echo though, it was coming from her. Somehow, and to her abject horror, the spell was now controlling her voice. The last thing she wanted anymore was to ever say or hear those words again. She started to silently cry, each one moved her body slightly, and after a second she couldn’t even managed that much. 

        A pale violet unicorn was trotting up to the bright red schoolhouse. Her violet and rosy brown mane and tail bounced as she hurried to the school. Her cutie mark was three diamonds, two atop another, forming a triangle. She was scanning the entire schoolyard with her bright purple eyes for her sister, Dinky, who she had forgotten she had to pick up from school today. When Sparkler couldn’t find her sister she went looking for the mauve colored teacher, hoping that Cheerilee would know where her sister was. 
Normally, their mother would have picked Dinky up from school but she was busy today and had asked Sparkler to do it for her. Unfortunately, Sparkler had lost track of time working on her newest project and didn’t realize until school had already been out for thirty minutes. This new project was rather complicated; she had to make fireworks for the local party planner, Pinkie Pie. That was a major problem; figuring that with what had happened the last time she was determined to not have another pony get caught on fire this time due to the pink party pony’s irresponsibility. So her new fireworks had to be over-engineered and have the launchers unable to be adjusted from their launch angle and impossible for anypony other than a unicorn to light them. 
“Crazy pony” she muttered under her breath.
        Sparkler sighed at the thought of what was happening back home. Her mom was currently saying goodbye to her ‘coltfriend’. She had no clue what else to call him since they weren’t romantic with each other but they spent a lot of time together. They always had enough money but every once in a while her mother would disappear for months at a time. She had never actually talked with the brown stallion for more than five minutes at a time, but she would compare him to a slightly more controlled Pinkie Pie. But this time he was leaving her mother here, saying that he had to do something very important and dangerous and that she couldn’t come. But he had promised to bring her a present and that they could go on more adventures together. 
“Can I help you, Sparkler?” 
The violet pony was so lost in thought that when she heard the voice behind her she that she almost jumped, but instead just slowly turned around to see the schoolteacher looking at her. Sparkler smiled, at least she found one of the ponies she was looking for. 
“Sorry” Sparkler replied, raising a hoof to the back of her neck. “Just got lost in thought for a minute.” She just hoped that Cheerilee couldn’t see how much she had been scared. “Anyway, I was just looking for my sister. Sorry I’m so late, but I forgot it was my turn to pick up Dinky today and I lost track of time,” She sheepishly grinned.
Cheerilee was a cerise colored pony with light grey cerise and light grey rose colored mane with three smiling flowers for a cutie mark adorning her flank. But at this Cheerilee tilted her head to the side in confusion. “Didn’t she tell you where she was going? She left here right after class with Diamond Tiara to work on a project this afternoon. Dinky said she would tell you where she was going.” The school teacher asked, the confusion came through in her voice. But Cheerilee just straightened her head back up and smiled. “Oh well, they said it wouldn’t take that long and that they would return here after they finished. You’re more than welcome to stay here until they get back.” She offered.
Oh no! Sparkler thought as her eyes widened in fear and thoughts ran through the back of her mind. “You let Dinky go somewhere, anywhere, with the school bully and thought nothing of it?!” Cheerilee was taken aback by the quick change in Sparkler’s attitude and the raise in her tone. She was more than willing to give anypony the benefit of the doubt, besides they both said they were working on a project. Surely if Dinky didn’t want to go she would have said something.
Before Cheerilee could give voice to any of her objections, Sparkler started asking her a question in a worried tone. “Quick! Which way did they go?!” The pyrotechnics pony started desperately looking around in every direction, hoping to see the two little fillies walking about town. 
Cheerilee lifted a hoof and pointed towards the southern end of town. “I saw Diamond Tiara go off in that direction after class got out.” She was slightly worried and was hoping that Sparkler wouldn’t do anything rash. Despite common belief, Cheerilee thought Diamond Tiara wasn’t actually a bad pony. But she could tell from looking at Sparkler that she wouldn’t listen to anything the school teacher had to say and she didn’t know what would happen if she didn’t answer the question. 
Before Cheerilee could even finish her sentence, Sparkler was galloping in the direction that Cheerilee had indicated as fast as her hooves could carry her. There were so many thoughts rushing through her head as she ran through town. What was that little brat doing to her sister? Why didn’t she remember to pick up her sister today? Why did that stupid stallion have to pick today of all days to leave for Celestia only knew where? What if something bad happens to my sister because I couldn’t be bothered to remember to pick her up from school today?! She started to panic and tried to run faster.
As she ran through the Ponyville market towards where Cheerilee had pointed she began to slow down. She wasn’t afraid of running anypony over; she had just noticed something odd. Complete silence. Everything was quiet. Her hooffalls made no sound, the wind blowing against her coat and through the trees were silent. She looked around only to see that the other ponies in the market had all stopped and were doing the same, they had noticed the quiet too. After a moment of looking around dumbly with everypony else, trying to figure out what was going on, she remembed her sister and started galloping again, redoubling her efforts to find the two fillies. This unnatural quiet unnerved her, felt unnatural. Whatever this dead silence was, it wasn’t good, and was in fact probably very bad. She started trying to think of where they could have gone to. If it was something dangerous and on this side of town, there was only one place it could be. That old abandoned house on the outskirts of town. Fillies and colts always went there if they thought they might get in trouble for trying something.
After making an immediate right down the nearest street, Sparkler spotted the suspected house a few blocks down from the intersection she was standing in. She took a second to catch her breath, happy, in just a few minutes she would get her sister back safe and sound. She picked up speed again and continued for the house, feeling so relieved that in a few minutes she could give her sister a big hug and apologize for being late and allowing this to happen. The bottom fell out of her stomach though as the house came fully into view. There were burn and scorch marks on the house and she felt a dark energy emanating from the abandoned dwelling. Before she could get any closer though, the violet unicorn saw a beam of light from inside rips the roof right off the house, incinerating it in the air. She had never seen such a display of power, and she needed to get in there to get her sister out. 
After a few seconds of contemplating how to achieve this, the walls of the house were blown outwards by a huge ball of flame that consumed the entire house and singed anything within fifteen feet of the abandoned building. Smoke started to billow up out of what was left of the house. All Sparkler could do was sit there in shock, this had to be a nightmare. Yes! That’s it, it was a nightmare! That delusion didn’t last long as she could feel the dark energy that still emanated from the blast site. She slowly started to shake, trying not to cry. Her flank fell to the ground in utter shock as her rear legs failed to support her own weight any longer. She started to feel nothing, she didn’t want to feel anything. Somehow she knew that her sister was in that building when it was destroyed, that nopony could ever have survived it. But worst of all, she realized that it was all her fault.


> Investigation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Celestia, eternal diarch of day, was sitting on her throne listening to her educational advisor on ways to increase the observational skills of all ponies. In recent years it had come to her attention that the citizens of Equestria weren’t that observant or capable of coming up with creative solutions to problems. Just recently at the Royal Wedding, not a single pony had realized that princess Cadance had been replaced by the changeling queen; despite the fact that her personality had changed as well as her magical aura from pink to a neon green. And while she had hired this pony to research and find a solution to this problem, she just couldn’t keep her attention focused on him. There had been a magical energy she had been sensing since she had raised the sun that morning. She couldn’t find where it was coming from; only that it seemed to feel oily and slippery and was everywhere. 
She had been fighting to keep her wings at her sides all day, wanting to take flight and keep an eye on her citizens, but she had to have faith that they could look after themselves, that was after all what she had spent so much time doing. Celestia would only step up if and only if her ponies had tried everything they could and failed. She had been the one to stop her sister Luna when she had become NightMare Moon over 1000 years ago because nopony else could stop an alicorn bent on bringing about eternal night. Celestia had been forced to banish her sister and wait for new element bearers to appear in order to save Luna.
        Celestia was an alicorn, possessing the abilities of all three pony races and responsible for raising and lowering the sun, while her sister did the same with the moon. She looked down at the green stallion at the bottom of the steps to her throne trying to pay attention to what he had to say. But, after a few minutes of this she looked back out of the stained glass windows to the balcony that she would use to look out onto Ponyville where her student was staying while finishing her studies. She cleared her throat and the stallion stopped speaking. “Sorry,” She spoke with a regal voice that most rulers would kill for, “but can we finish this another day Gentle Breeze? My mind is focused on other things right now.”
        “Certainly, your Majesty.” The pegasus scholar stated as he bowed and exited the throne room, never leaving the red carpet path that went from the throne to the doors and which covered the white marble floors.
        When the doors closed behind the departing advisor she got up and walked to her balcony. Her golden shoes clicked on the tile floor as she walked. They, along with her golden necklace and crown with a purple gem centered on each that matched the deep purple of her eyes, were her regalia and part of the job of princess. She let the sun warm her pearlescent white coat making sure that it hit her cutie mark of the sun and her flowing teal, purple, and rose pastel mane. She sat down and just breathed, looking out at Ponyville. She closed her eyes and attempted to find the source of the slithering energy once again. She heard metal horseshoes approach her; she knew it had to be one of her royal guards coming to check on her. She opened her eyes and peered down at the guard, he was, like all ponies, half her size. He had a white coat and two tone blue mane like most of her guards along with the golden armor that they were required to wear while on duty.
        “Are you alright your Majesty?” He sounded like he was just asking for a status update, but Celestia knew better. She had been around ponies for over 2000 years and she could hear the worry in his voice. She knew her ponies viewed her as a deity, and in a sense, that was true. She could do almost anything she wanted with her magic and was nearly immortal, but never cared if she was worshipped, all she wanted was to watch out for her ponies. That was why when Discord had started torturing her ponies she had come out of seclusion to defeat him. She just hadn’t been able to leave and wanted to watch over her ponies and make sure they flourished. 
        “I am alright, there is just a current of change to the air and I want to figure out what it means.” She responded, still thinking and feeling out the nascent energy.
        “Should I go get the element bearers?” the guard asked, ready to burst out of the room without hesitation. Celestia just smiled, they were so eager to do what was right, but they rarely thought it through.
        “Not yet.” The sun goddess replied. “We don’t know if this energy is malevolent or where it will emerge. There is no need to disturb their lives on a suspicion.” She knew the six bearers of the elements, and each one had a job and a life, including her student Twilight Sparkle. “We will just wait…” Celestia trailed off. She sensed the magic congealing and forming. It was headed towards Ponyville, moving like something was pulling the streams of it together. It was the opposite of what smoke did in the wind. 
        The guard saw Celestia stiffen, it was a very slight thing but years guarding the princess had led him to know her body language very well. He prepared his wings to take flight in a moment’s notice. 
        She continued to feel out the power, trying to figure out what it was and come up with a strategy for how to defeat it. She could tell that whatever it was, it was powerful, as in world rending powerful. She then analyzed how the spell was being weaved together, how it was formed, and what its purpose was. Summon, Ancient, Dark. Her eyes shot open. She turned to the guard who was at the ready for any order. “Go to my sister quickly. Tell her there is an Old One being summoned in Ponyville. Tell her to orbit the town while I look around, and if anything happens, she is to do what she views as best.” The guard took to the air and flew up from the balcony toward the tower of the castle where Luna would be resting until they switched for the evening. 
As she spread her wings, she felt the energy start to knot and twist, it was clashing and counteracting itself. Whoever was in charge of this spell had failed at some point. As bad as things were, Celestia knew this could be worse, it was random, and there was no way to predict what the spell would do when it finally released all of that built up magic. She flapped her wings and slowly raised herself off the balcony just as she saw a beam of light shoot into the sky from the far end of Ponyville. She nearly dropped out of the air in shock as she felt the dark energy all but vanish in an instant; but that was nothing compared to the reverberations of the leyline as magic was temporarily forced away from the epicenter. 
She started to fly as fast as she could to Ponyville, using her magic to cut the air in front of her, lowering the wind resistance and allowing her to move faster. She couldn’t think of why any inexperienced unicorn would ever cast directly over a leyline. Leylines were massive conduits of magic that would circle a planet. But, all unicorns were taught from an early age that that much power was hard to control and could cause a magical rebound or overload if the spell wasn’t pulled off perfectly. If the spell failed it could cause the energy to be forced back into the leyline, causing it to fluctuate, causing an explosion and for magic within the path to stop function or be harder to cast. 
As she soared over Ponyville she saw what was left of a house. All she could see was the foundation and the bottom few inches of what was left of the walls. As she landed in front of the decimated building she saw that in a few spots there were still fires burning. Celestia knew it had to have been a massive explosion. She could see that some of the remains were still smoldering, the explosion must have used up all of the oxygen in the area for long enough for the remains to cool some or the whole thing would have still been on fire, and fire needed oxygen to burn. In the middle of the living room she saw something shimmering.
Celestia stepped up to what should have been the door, she had noticed something shimmering and she wanted to take a closer look. As she stepped over the threshold though she heard screaming from behind her. She turned and saw a pale violet unicorn running up to her. After a moment Celestia realized she was screaming a name and crying, Dinky. Celestia hated this part, but it was needed. This unicorn obviously knew who had been responsible for the explosion and had likely just lost a loved one, presumably one named Dinky. She would have to attend this first.
Celestia stepped toward the onrushing mare and unfurled one of her wings to stop her. The unicorn tried to climb over Celestia’s wing and continue her journey to the ruins. Celestia just held her and used her wing to pull the unicorn into a hug. “Shhhh” she whispers “I have you.” And she just held onto the unicorn until her cries turned into sobs and then stopped all together. The unicorn is still teary eyed, but Celestia felt that whoever this was, was up to answering a few questions now, and Celestia needed some answers.
“It’s okay.” The alicorn continued to soothe. “Just tell me what happened so we can figure all of this out. Can you tell me your name?” She knew that whoever this was would do their best to help, it was in a ponies nature.
The pale violet unicorn looked up, tears streaking down her face as she started to choke out some words. “Sparkler,” Sparkler sniffled a little bit.
“Do you know what happened here?” Celestia implored
“All I know is that the local bully had gotten my sister to help her on some sort of project, I don’t know what though. The only thing I knew was that they came in this direction.”
“Was your sister’s name Dinky?”
“Yes,” Sparkler started tearing up again, her emotions were too raw, but Celestia needed this information, “She was such a good little sister, why did I have to be late?! Why couldn’t Cheerilee keep an eye on her?!” And she started to cry again.
Celestia just held onto Sparkler. She waited until a guard came up and asked her if she needed any help. Celestia nodded then moved her head so she could speak with the still crying unicorn. “Okay now, I need you to go with this guard. He will take care of you.” Celestia used her wing to guide the beset unicorn next to the guard. Sparkler just leaned up against the guard and walked where he walked, only able to move by using him for support. Celestia would have more questions later when Sparkler was better able to talk. Celestia realized she would also have to interview this Cheerilee and probably get some counselors over here to help with the fallout.
After Celestia saw the two ponies depart she turned back to the house. She noticed that a crowd was starting to gather, but none of them were getting anywhere near the house. She went back and entered the remains, just stepping over the wall into what used to be the living room. She noticed some sort of circle hanging over a book in the middle of the soot covered wooden floors. She circled the two objects, paying close attention to both as she passed. Magically they were both inert. There was no magic coming from the book; in fact it looked like the only reason it was still intact was due to some heavy protective charms that were placed on it that had been burned off during the explosion. Unfortunately, she could not say the same thing about the ponies who cast the spell, with how much heat and energy was released, she doubted they could find anything bigger than ash left of them. She would be rescheduling the educational advisor for in the morning and adding things like this to his list of research.
The thing floating above the book was the bigger mystery. It was thin, as in from the side it could barely be seen. From the front it was an opaque circle ten feet in diameter that floated one foot off of the ground. It emitted some sort of energy; the type that would cause most creatures to not approach it. Other than that though it gave off no magic, no energy, and no light; it was a void. It was just empty space that warned any who came near not to touch it, purely unnatural.
She picked up the book in her magic, her horn being covered by an immaculate white aura; first poking it with her telekinesis to make sure it wouldn’t try to form a connection to her or try to steal her magic. She looked at the page it was opened up to and gave a sigh of relief. As bad as this was, it could have been much worse, it was opened to one of the biggest threats she had ever heard of. This creature would be difficult to take down with her, her sister, and the elements attacking it. “How did this book get here?” she mumbled to herself. She knew of this book; it was over three hundred years old. She thought that every copy of it had been burned or was in the palace vaults. The pony that had come up with this book was mad; the creator had even gone so far as to bind it using pony flesh. She was one of the last ponies to face execution before it was abolished.
Celestia decided that the ‘void’ as it would be called, needed to be quarantined until they could figure out exactly what it was. If it was a threat it needed to be shut down or contained. If what was beneficial, they needed to figure out what it could do. She looked up and saw that a dozen of her guards had come to secure the area and that Luna was still floating above the city in case there was any trouble.
Celestia made her horn flash quickly, signaling an all clear to her sister. She then pulled out a piece of parchment, a quill, and ink from the castle using a teleportation spell and jots down a letter to her personal student.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,
As you are undoubtedly aware, there was a magical explosion on the outskirts of Ponyville today. It was an attempt by what appears to be two foals to summon a demon. It is yet unclear as to their purpose, but they caste it improperly and on top of a leyline. What I need from you is to find an expert and get out here to study it. Be careful around it though, it may feel benign but it was caste using dark magic and there is no way to tell what the spell that was caste will do. This will be your new priority, figure out what this ‘void’ is and find out if it poses a threat.
Princess Celestia of Equestria

Celestia then called over two guards. “You” she said ,pointing to the earth pony guard on the left “Take this letter to my apprentice, Twilight Sparkle.” She said, and floated the letter over to the guard. “You will find her in the local library. You are then to provide her with any assistance that she requires. You will assist her until she dismisses you, at which time you will return here to guard this place.” She then turned to the second guard, this one happened to be a unicorn. “You will form a cordon around this area, 15 feet in every direction, nopony is allowed past.” The guard nodded his head in understanding. “You are then to find some architects and engineers, we need a building as fast as possible to make a building in which we can study this. You will then be in charge of making sure it gets built as soon as possible.” They both nod in understanding. “Dismissed.” She commanded, and they both went off to do their separate tasks. Celestia just continued to stand there for a minute as she figured out what to do next. She decided on sitting down for dinner with Luna, this had been a trying day. But first, with a quick flick of magic, the book she had been holding in her telekinesis had burst into flames so hot that the only place they could have come from was the sun; or the entity that controlled the sun.

> Research
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        A quill was enveloped in a purple field of energy and moved along a brown unfurled piece of parchment. Twilight Sparkle was writing her newest observations on the void. Her light lavender coat was a mess and her mane and tail had gone unbrushed for days. The violet and hot pink stripes weren’t the normal clean lines in her dark sapphire mane; they were sticking out at odd angles. She hadn’t slept in days, just sat there next to the void running through her computations again and again. Twilight closed her eyes and screamed “AAARGH!! Why won’t the numbers match up?” She opened her eyes again to run the numbers again; her violet eyes were bloodshot and strained to see the paper.
        The problem was that neither Twilight nor Mystic Dawn, a professor in theoretical thaumaturgical science at the Royal Canterlot Academy of Magic, could even prove the void was there. Twilight had requested his assistance due to him being the preeminent scholar on thaumaturgy; or how magic worked and flowed. Everytime a spell was used on the void, the spell would just disappear, energy and all, completely ignoring the laws of conservation of magic. Sometimes the spell would just untangle as it approached the void and dispelled the energy used in the spell. Once a spell designed to check the void’s connection to the leyline and see where it was drawing its power from had just bounced off the void and ricocheted around the square room white room until it detonated against the door at the opposite end of the room. The room was designed to contain any and all magic, the problem with that spell was that somehow it had changed after contact with the void. She didn’t like thinking about the effects it had on both her and Mystic; thankfully it had worn off after a few hours but that kind of spell shouldn’t have even been possible. Twilight didn’t even want to think what she would have done if she had to go out into Ponyville as a stallion and Mystic hadn’t fared much better in becoming a mare. That had been a very awkward couple of hours. Being scientists they were curious, but at the same time embarrassed due to the other being in the same room and neither wanted to go out into the larger complex as they were, so they had just sat and waited. It was the last time they had randomly fired magic at the void. And that was only a few weeks ago, they had been at this for months.
        Twilight heard the door open but decideds to ignore it, still trying to decipher the figures they had somehow managed to collect. After that incident they had decided to measure the magic in the leyline and see if the void was drawing power away from it, but she couldn’t get the numbers to match up properly. “AAARGH!” she screamed again, even louder as she scribbled out some numbers. She couldn’t take it anymore!
        Twilight stood up, her eyes twitching erratically. I will figure this thing out! I won’t fail the princess! She thought. She approached the void, ignoring the feeling in the back of her mind telling her to run, she knew it was just whatever energy the void gave of. She stopped right in front of the void and lifted up a forehoof to touch the still white surface. As her hoof touches the surface of the void she felt a weird sensation travel up her leg. The feeling was icy cold and yet felt like a current of energy running up into her body. The researcher left her hoof there against the surface of the void, as she observed the ripples that spread out from her hoof to the edges of the void where they just disappeared. She felt her leg start to go numb, but her curiosity and need for answers was driving her now.
        She felt a slight tug on her tail but it barely fazed her, to intent was she on the void to notice anything going on in the world around her. What would happen if I were to put my hoof through it? It feels like I can just push past the surface. She grinned at that thought. That would be the quickest way to discover what was on the other side, just step on through and all of my questions will be answered. She felt another harder pull on her tail and she couldn’t have cared less, whatever it was could come with her. Maybe I should invite Pinkie Pie and we can all throw a party. Her hoof was still touching the void, she could still see the ripples on its vertical surface, taunting her with its secrets.
        “That’s it, time for some tough love.” 
        Twilight barely registered the voice coming from behind her, or the magical grip around her midsection a moment later. What she did notice however was the tug against her midsection, then the flying through the air until she smacked into the bookcase of reference materials they had brought in the previous week. Twilight fell to the floor slightly stunned and just looked around. Her eyes were fuzzy and as she scanned the room all she could see was white except for a patch of green and blue over by where she knew the void to be. She shook her head hoping it would help clear her vision.
        “What in the name of Celestia do you think you were doing?!” Twilight heard the other pony tell her in a highly educated male voice. She realized he was going into his lecture mode. “I remember you doing stuff like that in school as a foal, but I thought you would have outgrown that with age.” He slowly started coming into focus and she could clearly see his teal coat and aquamarine mane and tail. Her vision was still too blurry to make out his cyan eyes with wrinkles around them that denoted his age or his cutie mark which was a silver pentagram in a circle symbolizing the logic and order of magic. “What you just did was stupid and dangerous.” Her head dropped a little knowing that he spoke the truth. “We still don’t know what it can do and while we just found out that it may be somewhat safe to touch, it could just as easily have vaporized you. Do you not remember what it did to the spells we fired at it? The same thing could have happened to you.” She visibly shrunk at this as her mind ran rampant with all the ways it could ruin her life.
        “Please don’t tell Celestia.” The mare whispered. “I won’t do it again.”
        He gave an exasperated sigh “I know. You forget I was the one who proctored your finals. I saw how bad you can get when you can’t find a solution. I should have realized you weren’t sleeping.”
        Twilight’s eyes lit up a little. “Great! Then I can get back to my research.” She happily squealed and moved towards her parchment. As she got close to it, the parchment was wrapped in a teal field of energy and pulled away from her.
        “No!” Mystic stated in a manner that brooked no argument. “We are equals in this matter and we both need a day off. You will get a shower and some sleep then go hang out with your friends. Neither of us have left for two weeks and it is starting to erode our mental faculties.”
        Twilight wanted to argue with him but he made a good point. The only ponies allowed into this facility were the staff and that did not include her friends. She slowly nodded her head in ascent. She felt the fatigue start to settle in as she realized just how long she had been going she dragged her tired hooves over to the door and opened it out into a four way intersection. She knew that the path on the right lead to the commissary and that the path on the left lead to the dormitories. This place was designed to be secure and was built for more than was currently needed just in case they needed to move more ponies into the facility. The path Twilight currently wanted though was the one dead ahead and felt that if she was going to take a shower that she could do it in the comfort of her own home at the library.
        Twilight continued walking towards the facility’s exit and heard the door close behind her , she looked to see Mystic Dawn enter the intersection and head toward his dormitory. He lived in Canterlot and didn’t feel like going all that way just for one or two days of rest. She let him go and opened the door to the outside world. She was temporarily blinded as her eyes try to adjust to the natural light. When her eyes cleared she looked around and saw the two guards standing by the door making sure no one got past that hasn’t been cleared. “I’m going home for a few days. Consider it R&R. If anyone asks for me please send them to the library.” She headed off in the direction of the library. The void could wait for a few more days she thought.

        Twilight Sparkle was on her way back to the research center. She was enjoying walking through the fresh green grass and the crisp cool breeze that was blowing past. She was thankful to have grabbed that scarf before she headed out this morning and was grateful to have a friend on the weather team and that they had warned her this would be a chilly day. She’d had a nice two days of rest and was able to meet up with all of her friends. She wasn’t allowed to talk to her friends about her research; then again, she didn’t really have any results yet. The pony scientist did however have a plan on how to test the void’s connection to the leyline. What she would do is measure the energy in the leyline both before and after it passed the void. If the void was siphoning off energy from the leyline it wouldn’t be that hard to measure.
        Twilight neared the large one-story building that housed the research facility. Typically, Equestrian buildings were designed with a little more panache, but this one had been built with speed and containment in mind. Whereas buildings like Carousel Boutique, which looked like a giant pink, purple, and blue tent with a carousel on top or Sugercube Corner which looked like a gingerbread house. The research facility was made of white stone and had a flat roof. It was completely square with every inch on the inside able to be used. It was also easily defended and had means of containing anything that the void caused. There was only one way in or out, the flat roof meant nothing could hide up there, and the four-way corridor made it easy to spot and attack anything that was inside.
        Twilight nodded to the two guards as she neared the door and stood in front of it. One was an earth pony and the other a unicorn. She stood still while the unicorn scanned her making sure she wasn’t sneaking anything in and that she wasn’t using a guise or any other kind of disguise spell. She knew that if she failed, the earth pony guard would be there to attack her with its superior strength;, then again the unicorn guard would do the same to her with his magic. She also knew that if she were to try and run from either of them that there was a pegasi guard nearby ready to give chase. Those were just the ones she knew about and she knew that there had to be more in hiding just in case. Equestria still had plenty of enemies that would be more than willing to get whatever appendages they had on the void or any research on it.
        Twilight felt a tingle as the guard finished scanning her. This was the part she always felt nervous for. Even though she knew who she was, she was always afraid the guard would deny her entry and she would come under attack. But this time, just like every other one, the guard just grunted and used his magic to open the lock on the door. As the door swung open Twilight happily trotted into the facility with pent up energy. She was like a foal on Hearth’s Warming and wanted nothing more than to just run her tests and hope to get results this time. 
        Knowing that she had arrived late this morning Twilight knew Mystic would be in the void room trying out some new test or measurement or even just doing research. But unless they were eating or sleeping they were always in that room. Although once or twice she had fallen asleep while reading a book and Mystic would occasionally bring his food in there if he thought he was onto something. She opened up the door to see the cyan professor just sitting on the floor about twenty feet in front of the void and a few feet to the side. All Mystic was doing was staring at the void. 
        Oh no, the purple mare thought he’s fallen into the same hypnosis as I did. She moves next to him in order to wake up him when he starts to speak.
        “I’m not a zombie you silly filly.” He just slightly chuckles. “Look at the void, just look. We finally have results.” She could hear barely contained joy in his voice.
        Twilight decided to look at the void. It looked just the same as it always did to her. Perhaps he stayed here during his break and he’s finally snapped. She can’t think of anything to explain his behavior unless the void is having an impact on his sanity. Then she saw something in the void. It’s rippling. The void rippled while nothing was touching it. She felt giddy as she thought of the possibilities. She decided to sit next to her old professor and watch to see what happened. Only then did she notice that he had left enough room for her to sit next to him and for them to both have the same view of the void. 
        After a moment Twilight couldn’t contain her curiosity any longer “Did this start happening yesterday while we were gone?” 
        The pony sitting next to her calmly responded “It’s only been going on for about five minutes. It was quiet all day yesterday.”
        Twilight’s head quickly turned around to question the stallion sitting next to her. “Wait, didn’t you leave yesterday?” after a few seconds of thought another question popped into her head. “And shouldn’t we be getting reading or samples or analyzing this somehow instead of just sitting here?”
        Mystic just chuckled slightly before answering her. “I had nowhere else to go and I didn’t want to go through that scanning process again just for a few hours of fresh air. So I just stayed here and looked in on it every hour or so.” His face got a little more serious before he continued. “And I did try to take measurements of it but the void is too unstable at the moment. The machines I used around it just overloaded and any magic I tried to use around it would just unravel with the energy from it dissipating.” He sighed; he missed simple problems where he could actually test his hypothesis instead of just running around trying to think of a test that would actually get some results. “So I am just sitting and passively scanning the room waiting for something to happen. What else can I feasibly do?”
        Twilight had no response for that. Mystic had made some very good points. Just in case she took the precaution of charging up her magic and was ready to release it against the panic button on the wall in case anything were to go wrong. She was desperately afraid that whatever demon that somepony had tried to summon wasn’t going to come through it, or that it might cause another magical explosion. 
        As they were both watching the void a shape started to poke its way out of the center of the ripples. For a moment Twilight’s heart caught in her throat. This was the moment they would figure out what the void was and if it posed a threat. About two feet up from the bottom of the void, a metal claw started poking through. It only had the two, what look like pincers to Twilight, as it slowly emerged from the void. As it came out even more, she could see that they are attached to the middle of a metal circle that was coming through the void. The claw rotated in the circle. Twilight made sure her magic was still charged and prepped a second spell to fire just after the first. If this thing did anything threatening she planned on hitting the alarm then hitting it with her strongest telekinetic blast. But, if that did nothing she would use whatever power she would gather quickly and teleport herself and Mystic out of the building. Then she remembered that the building was warded against teleportation; part of the safety features to keep intruders out. Just as she was thinking how else they could escape the claw receded back into the void from whence it came.
        Twilight and Mystic just looked at each other in disbelief. “What the hay was that?” Mystic asked in utter disbelief. “And why did it go back in?”
        Twilight lets her spell dissipate when she noticed that the void had stopped rippling. “I’m not sure if it was a creature or a machine.” She started to slowly walk toward the void. When the void started to ripple again she jumped backwards to where Mystic was now standing. The claw slowly began to emerge from the void again. Apparently, whatever its original goal was it had accomplished it and was returning. 
        As they stared at the emerging claw they noticed a second ripple start to form below it; like two drops of water falling on a still lake, the ripple pushed and merged with each other. Out of the lower of the two ripples she spotted a rubber strap on either side of the square ‘body’ with rectangular protrusions perpendicular to the strap, but parallel to each other and on the strap. As it continued to emerge she saw that it was all one structure and that the arm that the claw was attached to just kept getting longer. When it was about halfway out it seemed to just float above the ground, half in and half out of the void. 
        She moved to the side and saw that the strap was connected to wheels and that the front was slanted like the front part of a trapezoid. While wondering what the purpose of that was the thing dropped on the strap and just trundled forward until the back end emerged from the void and dropped to the floor. When it got about five feet out from the void it just stopped and Twilight took a good look at what the thing was.
        It had two sets of wheels covered by a rubber strap with other smaller wheels keeping the strap tight against the main wheels. The strap formed a trapezoidal figure with the longer base on the top. Its main body connected to the wheels and was a rectangular shape held several inches above the ground. The arm was in the front and centered on the top of the body. The arm had two joints: the first was a few inches above the body and connected to the part of the limb which was a foot long tube that connected to another joint. This last joint connected to a shorter metal tube that was capped off with the claw. To the left of the arm it had another metal protrusion from its body that looked like a tuning fork holding a black metal rectangle. The rest of the top of the body was smooth and it had a cord running back into the void from the back end of it. The thing had some sort of writing on the side in a language she had never seen before; at least she hoped it was a language.
        She realized it was a machine because no living creature she had ever seen was made of metal. Besides she couldn’t feel any sort of magic coming from it or anything that could even be remotely considered life. But if it was a machine where was the creature that was supposed to be controlling it? Besides that, there was nothing on Equestria like this. She slowly moved around to the side of the ‘thing’. As she moved around it she noticed that the tuning fork and rectangle thing kept moving and following her. She realized that must be its eyes. And that it could follow her no matter what direction she went.
        As she moved back towards the front of the ‘thing’ she heard a sound issue forth from somewhere. It started with a burst of pure noise that hurt her ears for a second and she started to gather up her magic again. After a second passes a harsh and crackling sound came from what she could only assume was the ‘thing’s’ mouth. She couldn’t see anything moving but she heard a voice emanating from somewhere in the room that she had never heard before. The voice sounded distant and dead and nothing like the voice of a living creature. What stunned Twilight most though was what it said. It spoke in oddly accented and somewhat broken but still intelligible Equestrian. “In peace come we.”

> The Other Side
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECRET//SPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED-ZS A691
Date: December 21, 2012. 12:01AM local time.
Location: Area 51, Groom Lake testing site, Nevada, United States
Project Name: Zefram Shaw 
Project Description: Attempt to create Alcubierre drive for the purpose of faster than light (FTL) travel
Project lead: Dr. Alex Jenner assisted by Candace Gaines 

        Dr. Alex Jenner was exhausted but the only time they could successfully run these tests without being spied upon even inside their little test building was at night. Jenner was in his 50’s and was starting to go bald. His hair was a light blonde and wispy, his eyes a chestnut brown, and he wasn’t that tall at five foot eleven and preferred to wear brown slacks and a button down white t-shirt. What he was trying to accomplish was supposedly years beyond even having scientific proof that it could work, let alone an actual real-world testing of it. But here he was working on a device that was meant to go faster than the speed of light.
        The initial problem had been in finding an energy source capable of supplying enough energy to power two devices that were each supposedly against the laws of physics. This had actually been the first part of the solution to be solved. Somehow they had found out how to use dark matter and regular matter collisions to produce the energy. They had even discovered how to capture that energy to approximately 99% efficiency. This was huge and allowed for the enormous consumption for the warp bubble to protect and move the ship and the field generator that in effect folded space around it and created a wave that the bubble would ride. The only thing he knew about the dark matter engine was that it used a magnetic field to contain and collide the particles, and that is was incredibly expensive to create the need dark matter. This pretty much proved how important this task was viewed.
        The surprising thing was that they were somehow either able to create or gather exotic matter that as far as Jenner was concerned was still just hypothetical work. They had found a substance with negative mass to help propel the ship forward. Negative-mass works the opposite of normal mass. A positively charged ion will be attracted to a negatively charged ion. However, a positively charged ion with negative mass would be repelled by a negatively charged ion and would instead be attracted to a positively charged ion. The other particle was the tachyon, which could somehow move faster than light. These would both be necessary in order to create the warp bubble; which was needed to protect whatever vehicle it was installed on from being folded along with space itself and allowed the ship to ride along the curvature in space that the generator created. The only other way to create the bubble would have been to place a singularity at the front of the ship and Jenner did not want to deal with miniature black holes. 
        The drive and all constituent parts were in what might as well have been a box. Since all of this was compartmentalized, so that no single leak could give all of this information to foreign powers; it was necessary that even he not know how all it of worked, just that it did and the effects of each part. But then again, what should one really expect from the government. 
        They had yet to get a successful test run of the warp bubble and the folding of space to happen at the same time. Every time they had tried working them together either the engine would completely fail to fold space or the bubble would lose integrity and disintegrate. Jenner was really getting tired of failures and wished they could just launch this whole contraption into space where it would be easier to work with. But no, they wanted him to work with it in the middle of the Earth’s gravity field because they didn’t want the Russians, the Chinese, or their own people to know what they were working on. Some days Jenner really hated working for the government.
        Thankfully, between him and Candace they had managed to clamp down on the exotic particles. For some reason when the different fields would touch they would create exotic particles that could do only God knew what. If they had let him see the math on the dark matter engine, or the field generator, or even how they managed to get ahold of tachyon particles he could figure out where these exotic particles were coming from and how to prevent them. Hell, the negative-mass particles and tachyons were themselves exotic particles. And, because these issues were quote unquote “volatile”; Jenner had been relegated out to the salt flats and not even allowed to perform his tests in his own lab in Area 51. That was gratitude for you.
        He double checked his assistant’s numbers one last time. Candace was about five foot four inches tall with skin the color of wet sand that went with her short cut auburn hair and wore a basic white lab coat. Her job in all of this was to basically double check that Jenner didn’t miss anything. They both received readouts on their own computer screens but only Jenner was responsible for controlling the different parts of the Alcubierre drive. He did however; tend to leave the readouts to her. It wasn’t just that he was too busy trying to keep everything stabilized, but because he did trust her. Candace was the only assistant he had let join him on this task.
        “Alright” Jenner orders “Let’s start this puppy up.” He typed a command into his computer. “Starting up the dark matter energy generator.”
        “Generator is functioning and is maintaining energy output at 98%” She knew this was about standard. Machines never had optimal performance, especially when they were needed too. 
        “Now for the tricky part.” He issued another command to his computer “Starting up the warp bubble.” This time he looked at his own readings to make sure that the tachyons were within all acceptable limits and that the field was evenly distributed around the drive. He ignored her statement confirming that the field was stable and instead looked up at the generator. It looked just the same as it did before, which was expected; the field was invisible to the naked eye after all. What he had wanted to look at though was the old beer bottle he had tethered to the device as a way of double checking if the field was stable. The thing about warp bubbles was that anything in them was not moving; therefore, any objects in the field would not be affected by gravity and would float as if in free-fall. A grin graced Jenner’s face as he saw the empty beer bottle floating at the end of its tether which was just a paltry six inches from the warp generator.
        Now Jenner started working on the hard part. He knitted his brows together as he started up the warping field to fold space around the bubble that would allow it to travel faster than light. He had set it up so that even if it did successfully fold space, the drive would stay in the one location, or else they could lose all of their research and hard earned materials. 
        He could hear the ecstatic voice of his assistant “We have folding! We actually have folding and a stable warp bubble!”
        Holy shit, He thought, the damned thing actually worked! He double checked his numbers and they all read nominal. The old physicist then looked up and saw the distortions around the drive that showed that space was being folded right in front of his eyes. He turned around to the camera behind his work station and flipped it the middle figure. Take away my lab and I can still get the job done.
        His head jerked back to his readouts when he heard his assistant’s panicked voice. “Exotic particles detected. Bubble destabilizing.”
        He looked at his readouts and sure enough the sensors detected exotic particles. He went to try and restabilize the field when he noticed that these particles had never been seen before, even in these tests and that both the warp field and bubble are behaving erratically. He had no clue how to stabilize it. He gave an angry sigh as he realized he only has one choice. “Shut it down! NOW!!!” he yelled. While Jenner could have shut the whole thing off himself; he knew it would happen much quicker if he had help. This was too unpredictable a situation. Once he got these machines all turned off; it would be quite a while before he turned them back on. He would get a look at the math or he wouldn’t cooperate on this project again. 
        Jenner heard the bottle crash to the ground and confirmed with his readout that both fields were down and the dark matter generator was off. He looked at his readouts and realized that the field actually collapsed in on itself. That could have ended really badly.
        Jenner looked over at Candace. “What the hell happened?!” His anger was getting the better of him and his words had to force their way past his teeth.
        “I don’t know sir. One minute everything was fine and the next the readouts were making no sense and both fields were collapsing.” She was visibly shaking. She is visibly shaking. Damn. Guess this means I’ll be needing a new assistant if this project ever gets started again.
        He looked over at Candace. Her mouth was hanging open and her eyes looked horrified. He followed her gaze and didn’t see anything. The warp generator was gone. The damn thing had completely disappeared. Even the bolts that held the drive to the ground so it wouldn’t float away when the warp bubble was engaged were gone. “Shit.” Is all he managed to mutter. Good thing we shut it down when we did or this whole place could have gone with it.
        For a split second Jenner thought he saw a spark where the drive used to be and then time stopped. The spark stayed there for a split second longer and then rapidly expanded to a field of white.

        President Margarette Tow was working at her desk in the Oval Office. She was going to be up all day just in case riots were to break out today. Mayan Calendar my ass, she thought, It’s always something new to panic about. She remembered how people were panicking right up until the changing of the clocks for the new millennium. 
        Margarette Tow had just been reelected for her second term in office the month before and she had some things that she wanted to accomplish this term. She was determined to stop the gender gap and had passed laws that allowed women to serve on the front lines of combat, and she liked the way that had turned out. An elder senator from the other side of the aisle had tried to block the bill and she made sure that anything he had ever done against a woman in his employ was all over the front page of every newspaper in the country. The President was not one to allow others to stand in her way for what she thought was best for the United States. 
It had taken a lot to become the first female president of the United States of America. Hell, just look at how few presidents in fictional media are female. She scoffed at that idea. She had never married. That was mostly due to the fact that she had to be cold and calculating and never quite found the time to find a suitable candidate. She was a stern looking woman with pale skin and red dyed hair; just enough to hide the gray yet keep her natural color. Her green eyes gave her a mysterious look, but many adversaries had failed to understand their predatorial side in time. She always wore a black business suit with red accents while in public. The public always expected the President to look at their best.
The phone on her desk rang. “Always something to take care of.” She muttered as she picked up the phone. 
“Madam President, we have a guy here from the CIA saying they have some sort of emergency. He’s saying that he needs to talk to you right away. All he would say was that it had to do with a special project out of Groom Lake.” President Tow’s secretary was a female. She had picked this one in particular to lull male senators into a false sense of security before stepping into the Presidential Office. 
She thought about what project at Area 51 could possibly be of such importance as to have the CIA running over here in the middle of the night. She could only think of one or two and all of them were major news. “Send him in immediately if you would. Thank you.” President Tow hung up the phone and sat at her desk to await her guest.
The door at the far side of her office opened and a man in a black suit and shoes walked in. He had black hair and brown eyes and looked perfectly unexceptional; it was the kind of face hat you forgot moments after seeing it. He held a manila envelope and walked towards her desk. Her secret service agents around the room didn’t move to stop him. He had already been searched for a gun and had the necessary clearance to see her this late at night. “We had a problem at Groom Lake this evening. There was an explosion at one of the testing sites and there may be an issue.” He handed her the manila envelope and stood waiting for any questions the president would have.
The President just looked up at him and asked “Exactly which program had the difficulties?” The answer would determine her approach to the situation.
“It was the FTL project. All we know is that they had a malfunction and now everything there is gone. I believe the pictures will explain it.”
She sighed. Just once it would be nice if someone, heck, anyone would just give me a straight answer and tell me what needed to be done. President Tow opened up the envelope and looked at the pictures. 
The first picture showed the salt flat that was Groom Lake with a prefab building standing in the middle of it. She knew this as the site that would be used if a project was deemed to hazardous to be performed at the regular test sites. The second picture showed a giant ball of white enveloping the entirety of the salt flat. That explosion had to have been huge to create a ball of fire over three square miles. The last picture was a close-up of a sliver of white and two blackened crumpled forms about five feet in front of it. The blackened forms in front of the anomaly were too burnt to be called anything near human anymore.
President Tow looked up at the man that brought her the pictures. “What kind of explosion was that in the second picture? I have never heard of an explosion that was completely white.” She asked eyeing the man critically.
“We don’t know.” Was the only response she received from him.
“Ok then, what is that last picture of?”
“We don’t know that either Ma’am. All we know is that whatever that is is right in the middle of Groom Lake. Right where the Alcubierre drive tests were being run.”
She rested the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger while she thought. She needed to keep it concealed without letting anyone know what was going on and she needed answers. “Ok. Go back to Langley and tell them that they are to get started on it right away. We need answers. Make sure they cover the site. The last thing we need is a Chinese satellite moving over that site and taking pictures of it.” He turned to leave but she stopped him. “And tell Langley to bring in whoever they need.”
He looked back at her and nodded. The man then quickly rushed out the door. Well, she thought, this should be an interesting term.

> Creature
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The machine just stayed in that one spot, “In peace we come.” It stated again in that same dead voice. But there was something else about that voice that bothered her, she just couldn’t figure out what it was through that accent.
Twilight couldn’t believe that thing was talking. How could it? It wasn’t organic and shouldn’t have been alive; let alone able to talk. Her breathing started to pick up speed and she began to panic. Synthetic life was something no Equestrian had even considered up to this point and she was staring at an example of it in the face. No! Bad Twilight! Don’t freak out and don’t jump to conclusions! The pony thought. She took a deep breath and started thinking again, this time from a calmer perspective. Ok, start with what is known. First, it is inorganic. Meaning it did not create itself. It is not acting aggressive so its creators are probably controlling it. She took another steadying breath and looked over at Mystic and realized he was studying the machine while its attention was focused on her. Better keep its attention on me for a while so Mystic can finish his test. I can always think this through later. She didn’t know what might happen if this, whatever the hay it was, noticed somepony was running tests on it.
Twilights sat down and put on her most regal expression. She had to keep this thing occupied and figure out as much about it as she could. “Forgive me, but I don’t even know what to call you. Do you have a name?” She inquired. Twilight was also using this as an opportunity to figure out its language capabilities. 
The machine just continued to look at her with that little black box; staying completely still and it was starting to unnerve her. After about a minute of this it replied, “M.A.L.P.” and went quiet again.
Twilight tilted her head to the left microscopically. Whatever that name was she knew it was in no language she had heard of before. ‘Mehp’ was what she thought it had said but wasn’t sure and didn’t want to insult it. Wait, if it wasn’t alive, could it be insulted? Twilight asked herself, No! Focus on the task at hoof. She looked back toward ‘Mehp’ and asks her next question. “Is that your name or your species? You look quite different from most of the life around here.”
The machine was quiet for another minute, still staying completely motionless. “M.A.L.P.” was all it said in the end.
Why was it taking so long to answer? That was one thing Twilight couldn’t figure out. She looked over at Mystic out of the corner of her eye and saw that his horn was no longer glowing. Her ears rose slightly, subtly asking if he found anything out and Mystic gave a slight nod back. He had! She barely contained the squeee that had wanted to force its way out. Progress! She then returned her attention to Malp. 
There was one last thing she wanted answered before she wrote to the princess about this. “Why are you here?” She asked, dead serious. That question would dictate her next actions.
This time the silence went on longer than any of the previous times. “Check Safety. See if threat.” The responses were emotionless and-
AHA! She’d finally figured out what about the voice sounded off. Malp is saying each word separately as if each word had been looked up before it was stated. Whatever is controlling this machine had to be looking up each word that it heard and had to speak from a dictionary. No, that didn’t make sense. If they were looking it up in a dictionary it would take longer than a minute to decode and recode a message between languages. She needed to get that letter to her mentor so that they could figure out what to do next. “Malp, if you will excuse us. We need to contact Celestia with news of this recent event. Will you be fine here by yourself and not leave the room?” 
While Malp took its standard amount of time answering, Twilight picked up her quill, ink, and parchment and carried them behind her in a purple telekinetic field. Mystic Dawn took this opportunity to stand and got ready to move toward the door. Neither was going to leave until they received an answer from their guest.
“Yes. Wait.” They both nearly jumped when Malp answered in what seemed to them like a louder volume. 
Twilight opened the door from the other side using her magic. She held it open just long enough for Mystic to exit, then followed him and closed the door behind her. She followed him down the hallway toward the intersection and turned left. As they entered the housing unit, he turned into a random room and looked at her; Twilight saw the worry in her counterpart’s eyes.  Before she could say anything, Mystic’s horn is surrounded by a lime green aura as he closed the door and started casting spells on the walls of the room. Twilight wondered what he was doing until she realized it was all the same spell. For some reason, he was casting layer upon layer of sound dampening which reduced the air vibrations from sound to an almost negligible amount after one; let alone the four he had cast. 
After he finished casting his spells he looked Twilight in the eyes. She could see his naked fear and the sweat dripping off of him from overexertion of magic. She decided to wait until he was ready to speak, let him gather himself. Mystic worked his mouth a few times with no sounds escaping. He closed his mouth, licked his lips and took a deep breath. “No magic!” He rapidly blurted out, catching Twilight off guard. She tilted her head to the right a little to signal that she was confused; afraid that talking might shake him up more. He took another breath and stated in as calm of a manner as he could, “That creature has no magic.” His eyes were a little large hoping that Twilight would grasp the significance of what he had just said.
Twilight let out a sigh and drooped her head. “Of course it can’t use magic, it’s a machine; as in, not alive to begin with.” She looked up only to see complete shock in his eyes.
Mystic just stood there for a minute letting what his fellow researcher had said to sink in. He let out a sigh of his own and responded in what he hopes wasn’t too condescending of a tone. “I know that. What I meant was that there was no magic in it. The metal and everything else is it made of contains no magic. As in that machine has never been around magic.” He decided to let her process that for a minute.
Twilight started to cough as she realized the implications this could have. Everything in the world had some sort of magic to it. Not just living things like ponies and trees either, but nonliving things like rocks and gems. That was how they were able to so easily use gems to store and shape magic; they already contained magic and thus the ability to contain more. If something had no magic what would…. Her mind stopped working as questions started popping into her head.
Mystic saw the gears grind to a halt in his counterpart’s head as the point he was trying to make finally hit home. He even knew what questions she was going to ask and was deciding on whether or not he would wait for her to ask them. He decided on being nice and filling her in on the other things he had discovered. “It was also using electricity, and massive amounts of it. It was using so much that I couldn’t even get an estimate of it. And that string behind it going back into the void? I think that is supplying the creature with power.” He knew just how scary this was, it was incredibly advanced and would likely be over 500 years before something like that was even beyond the theoretical stage in Equestria. But he still hadn’t told her the most disturbing aspect of this creature yet. “And due to it containing no magic. It will be heavily resistant to any attempt to use magic on it.” He finished talking and he was glad he was.
Twilight was completely stricken except for one stray fact that kept floating through her head. “But, how do you know it is resistant to magic?” She knew he always had evidence, especially before making grand statements like that. 
He took a deep breath. “Because I used a simple telekinesis spell on the string. It required using about three times more energy than it normally would on such a small object.” He waited for her outrage. Instead all he received was silence. He looked up to see her stricken. Her ears were folded back and her rump had hit the ground. He expected to be yelled at for doing something so reckless, if the creature had found out there was no telling how it would have reacted. It was just as reckless as when Twilight had tried to go through the void a few weeks prior. That was why he had put up so many sound dampening layers though, he had no clue what kind of magic that creature could get through or how easily.
He was broken out of his reverie as Twilight started speaking. “Letter” She had set her parchment and ink well on the ground and was levitating her quill in her magic just an inch over the paper. “I need to tell the princess about this immediately. She’ll know what we should do next.” The quill started to move over the parchment while Twilight mumbled to herself, the quill putting the words on the paper as fast as she could write them.

Dear Princess Celestia,
We have made contact with a creature that has come through the void. It seems to call itself Malp. At the bottom of this letter there is a picture of the creature. It seems peaceful and has just stayed in the same spot since it arrived through the void. It seems to know basic Equestrian, but we have yet to ask it how it acquired such knowledge. It appears to be highly advanced technology. Mystic estimates it is at least 500 years more advanced than anything we have ever seen. It was using so much electrical energy that Mystic was unable to even estimate its consumption. It doesn’t appear to be alive and is constructed using metal and rubber. We know that it can see and talk and listen. We had a brief conversation in which it seemed to need time to translate but it was faster than should be possible. 
There is a problem though. It appears to come from a place without magic. When we surreptitiously ran a test on an extraneous part of it, the string we believe is for its power supply, we found out that it requires at least triple the energy to move it as it would something native to this world. I believe it is a machine and is being controlled from the other side of the void. It stated that it came here to ‘Check safety. See if threat’ and that is all it will say. 
I believe it is prudent at this juncture to see what you would like out next step to be.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle


She magically sealed the letter and placed a ward over the rolled parchment so that only Celestia herself could open it. A ward was a protective spell that would only activate if someone tried to force it open and could do anything from just destroying the letter to lighting the perpetrator on fire. She quickly picked it up with her magic and opened the door to leave. “I have to make sure Celestia gets this as soon as possible and will be back in a few minutes.” She thought that Mystic didn’t look as shaken up as he did a few minutes ago. As she headed back toward the intersection she could feel the sound dampening spells dissipate as they were dispelled and displaced by Mystic.
When Twilight got to the intersection she took a look to her right to make sure the door to the research chamber was still closed and then headed to the left. When she got to the door she looked at the two ponies still standing guard. Neither one deigned to look at her, figuring if she came from the inside then she wasn’t a threat and would be leaving in a minute. 
Twilight cleared her throat to get one of the guard’s attention. When the one on the left, who happened to be a pegasus, looked at her she handed the parchment to him and asked her favor. “I need this delivered to the Princess Celestia immediately. Take it to the tree house and give it to my assistant Spike. He’s a little purple dragon and pretty hard to miss. Tell him its urgent. Can you do that?” She could technically do this herself but she didn’t want to have to be scanned back in just for a five minute trip.
The guard picked up the letter with his wing and held it in front of his face, staring at it. “What is this?” He asked in a slightly gruff voice.
“It’s warded in case you were wondering, so don’t open it. It’s a progress report on our research here. We just had a major breakthrough and need to inform the princess immediately.” She quickly explained. 
The guard gave her a disapproving look, which was quite different from their normal stoic expression. “Ma’am, I am a royal guard and one of the best. Which is why I was personally selected by Princess Celestia for this job and am too professional to look at mail that is not for me. I will deliver this message for you if I have to walk to Canterlot.” With that he put the letter in his mouth, and pumping his wings, took to the sky. 
Just as she turned around to go back into the facility she saw another pegasi land and took the formers position next to the door. She headed back into the facility and closed the door behind her. She could Mystic at the door to the void with his horn glowing. She walked up to him and sat down, waiting for him to stop whatever it was he was doing. As the aura around his horn slowly faded away he opened his eyes and straightened up. “Sorry. Just wanted to make sure it was still there and that it was still alone. It hasn’t even moved from what I can tell.” His voice was strained and he was fighting to stay awake. He had used a lot of energy and brain power that day.
Twilight nodded her understanding. “The letter is away and we should hear from her soon. Why don’t we take watches? I’ll take the first and you get some sleep.” As he nodded his head in confirmation she opened the door and entered the room. She wanted to see if she could figure anything else about this creature. She had only been gone for an hour.

Celestia was sitting in her study looking over the crop and weather estimates for the coming year. These reports had come in for her approval after seeing what the earth ponies would need for their farms and what the pegasi could provide. It was all worked out before it got to her but she liked to double check things like this and saw how the different sides were getting along. Disputes in subtle areas could be used to predict future difficulties.
Her study was in one of the towers in Canterlot Castle. The room was round and fairly large with a fireplace on one end. She was laying down on a large dark magenta pillow with violet red ruffles and a gold colored pillow along the back third. It was large enough to hold both her and her sister comfortably and was located a few feet in front of the fireplace. The walls were decorated with scrolls and tapestries she had acquired over her many years as ruler.  
As Celestia was looking through the end of the report, a ball of smoke began to form and curl in front of her. She looked up from her papers to see the smoke finish forming a ball and with a small pop of light turned back into a rolled up piece of parchment. She smiled, happy that her student had learned a new lesson in friendship. Very few ponies knew how to send a letter straight to her by using dragonfire to burn the scroll and Twilight’s assistant was one of those few. She decided to take a break from the estimates to see what her student had discovered. She stopped when she saw the red seal designating the letter as urgent. The leader of Equestria then ripped open the seal to see what was so urgent and correctly surmised that it must have to deal with the void. 
As Celestia read the letter she started to plan what she should do next. There was nothing to do about it being advanced. But, if it was another culture there was an expert out in the field she could call in. As for the creature saying safe, did it mean for something to visit or to conquer? That was a big issue she would have to address personally, especially if it was resistant to magic. Twilight was right as this needed to be addressed immediately.
Celestia moved her crop and weather reports over to her oak desk at the other end of the room and pulled out a fresh scroll. She dipped her quill into the inkwell and started writing.

Dear loyal subject,
This letter has been written in a safe manner in case it falls into enemy appendages. We have an issue here that needs your specialized skills. There has been an encounter with what can only be surmised as a completely alien life form. I know your current study has taken a long time but I am recalling you. You are to get out of there as fast as can be safely achieved. You will return to the fallback location where a carriage will be waiting to take you to the creature. This is urgent and you are authorized to use any means necessary to return. I will arrange for a briefing for you in three days, make sure you are there before then.
Signed,
C


The missive then disappeared in a puff of smoke that then curled and streamed out an open window into the wilds. Celestia knew it would take about a day for her researcher to get back to civilization. She exited her study and looked at the two guards watching her door. She didn’t really need the guards, but they were more of a symbol and an early warning system. She was still vulnerable if she was asleep or not paying attention. She looked at the first guard, “Swift Shot,” She knew the names of every pony in her employ “I need you to get a chariot out to this location as quickly as possible.” She handed him a small slip of paper as she spoke. “Tell them the pony they are to pick up will use a code word to prove their identity. They are then to take them straight to Ponyville.” She then walked away down the hallway.
“Right away your Majesty.” The guard bowed his head. “Where are you going?”
“To Ponyville. There is something I need to address personally.”

Celestia landed outside of the research facility with the two guards on duty barely even acknowledging her. As she went to enter the front door, the two guards blocked her path. She looked down at them, “What is the meaning of this?” Her tone serious and her eyes hard.
“Sorry about this, but everypony that enters must be scanned and searched.” The guard replied, ever the stoic.
“Even your princess?” She questioned the guard.
“If you are the princess. Queen Chrysalis has proven capable of mimicking an alicorn. And if you try to force your way in, the place will lock down before you can even reach the front door. Now spread your wings and lower your defenses so my counterpart can scan you and see if you really are Princess Celestia.” The guard ordered, ready to attack if she declined.
“How do I know you are really guards then?” She asked, hoping to find a hole in his logic.
“If you were the princess you would already know that. And if you aren’t the princess I would never discuss our security precautions with you.” He replied, starting to lose his patience. “Now submit immediately or we will be forced to view you as a threat!”
Celestia spread her wings and lowered her defenses enough for the unicorn guard to run a scan over her. All she could do was scowl while a pegasi guard looked through her feathers and her hair and the unicorn scans her for anything she could be hiding and checking her magic signature and any spells she was currently running. After a few minutes the search stopped and the same guard spoke back up. “You are free to enter Princess.” He states in that same stoic fashion and just looked forward again, scanning for any potential threats. 
She stared down at him. “Do I even get an apology for being accosted by my own guards?” Her tone irate and cold. 
Typically this tone would cause most ponies to immediately cower and start apologizing profusely. All this guard said was one word and barely even moved. “No.”
Celestia huffed and headed into the research facility. As she entered a small smile crossed her features. She would have to recommend to his superiors that he receive a commendation. She would make sure he received something for doing his job so well. She had made sure for many centuries that her guards were the best at what they did and would always do what was best for Equestria. Her smile grew even larger as she saw two ponies waiting for her outside the door to the void room. 
Celestia could see that the green unicorn and the purple unicorn were arguing over something and she used a little magic to augment her hearing. 
“But I barely had a chance to ask if it needed anything before you dragged me back out here. There are so many questions to ask it.” The purple one stated.
“Yes, but we need to wait to see what Celestia wants us to do. And in asking questions you might give something away.” The green one replied back.
Celestia had finally gotten within earshot of the arguing ponies. “I would have to agree with Mystic Dawn on this Twilight Sparkle.” Her voice was back to its normal cheerful and loving tone. She enjoyed seeing the look of surprise on her student’s face.
“But...” Twilight started to stutter before she got herself under control. “But why are you here. I expected you to just send a letter or to take a day to get here.”
Celestia smiled at her student that never realized how important she was or how important her discoveries often were. “I needed to see this new creature for myself. Besides, now that progress has been made the security had to be checked.” There was another reason Celestia had come personally; there was no telling how a letter would get in here without being opened for security. She really was playing this by ear.
Normally Celestia would have let Twilight stay in charge but this was a special situation and she knew things that Twilight simply couldn’t have learned yet, if ever. “Okay, I will go in with you two, but it will be under a veil. It would be best for neither this thing nor the ones that may be controlling it not to know I am there. Try to set up a diplomatic meeting for a week’s time so that we can set up our own theories and diplomats. Also you may need to talk more with it to build up a rapport. ” She iterated, knowing she would have to explain more.
Twilight took a minute to digest this information. “But what do traditional wedding garments have to do with this? And couldn’t it still see you?” Twilight had no clue what some of this meant but she would rather ask the question than look like a fool later.
Celestia briefly smiled at her prized student, always knowing what questions to ask. She wasn’t surprised that Twilight didn’t know what a veil really was; she had worked hard to make sure it stayed hidden. Some magic was just too powerful for the average pony to know about. “A veil was originally a spell designed to keep one hidden while in plain sight. It’s a type of disguise spell that is very difficult if not impossible for the average pony to pull off. It in effect makes the pony invisible as long as the veil is undisturbed. The only problem is that it doesn’t block sound or the magical presence of the caster.” Not all of this was true, but Celestia hoped that it would discourage study. 
“But, Your Majesty. It is resistant to magic. It would require a lot more energy than normal to fuel the spell.” Mystic let out; worried that Malp would still be able to see her. 
There was still so much that Celestia’s ponies did not know about magic or the world around them. “This particular veil affects the air around me and doesn’t touch anyone’s senses. It only affects the world directly around me. So long as nopony enters the area of the veil or talks to me, it won’t even know I am in there. There are only a few ways to see through one. The main way is by detecting magic and if what you two say is true, they won’t be able to detect magic due to them not knowing it exists. And most of the others may tell them something is in there but not where.” In reality Celestia knew that the creature might be able to see magic, it was just another form of energy that it could apparently use at unprecedented levels. As the regent of the sun however, she knew all about different types of energy, including heat energy, and how to hide them to all but the subtlest blip. And to obfuscate its detection ability further she would be hiding behind Twilight the whole time. “And make sure to levitate something above you like reference books.” Celestia didn’t know what this new creature could do, so she had to assume, for now at least, that it could do at least as much as magic. 
Twilight started to question her teacher, but when she looked into Celestia’s face she knew this would be based upon trust. “Ok.” Twilight easily agreed, she trusted the princess completely and worked so hard to make sure she never failed the princess. She lifted up her writing supplies and looked at everyone. At least she tried to but all she could see was Mystic and she could barely feel Celestia at all. Wow! She thought to herself. That must be some powerful magic. Well, here goes nothing. Twilight took a deep breath and opened the door into the void room. 

> Arrival
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The area in front of the void was clear as Malp had moved himself over to the far wall that morning; which was weird because Twilight had been trying to talk to it for the past two days without any luck, not even sure if it was awake or asleep at that time. Trying to talk with Malp went along with  Celestia’s suggestion to build up a rapport with it had been unsuccessful. The purple pony had prioritized the conversation so high due to the creatures coming through earlier than planned. She had tried to set up the meeting for a week from the initial encounter but all Malp would say was that the meeting would be “four eight hours” and it was only after a little talking did they figure out it had meant forty-eight hours.
        So, Twilight was sitting about fifteen feet in front of the void waiting for a visit by whatever creatures had sent Malp. She was sitting there next to one of her best friends, the fashionista designer, Rarity. Rarity’s indigo mane was coiffed with extra care and her coat brushed to a pearlescent white and her bluish grey eyeliner had been put on with extra care to match her azure eyes and her best fake eyelashes, she was set to dazzle whatever dignitaries decided to exit the void. Oooh, I hope they have some manners and aren’t like those horrid diamond dogs, the seamstress thought, remembering when they had kidnapped her and forced her to mine gems for them. It took forever to get all of that dirt out of my coat!
        Celestia had told Twilight to pick one of her friends as a dignitary to meet the coming creatures, as a sign of respect having two Equestrian heroes to meet the newcomers. Rarity had been the obvious choice; Pinkie being Pinkie was not one to give a good first impression and might actually scare them; Applejack was hard enough to understand for a pony that grew up speaking Equestrian and these creatures probably couldn’t, not to mention that her manners left something to be desired; Fluttershy, while nice and polite would be too scared to talk to them or even could out from behind her mane, especially if they looked scary; and Rainbow Dash would likely try to show off or challenge them to a race if she could; Rarity was polite and diplomatic and would give a decent impression, at least she could hold her tongue if she had too. Mystic was originally supposed to be here with her but he felt it wasn’t a good idea for both researches to be there when the creatures came through just in case they were hostile. Twilight thought he was scared because the evidence indicated that they were magic resistant and it even scared her a little, and she had faced down the god of chaos just under a year ago.
        So Twilight sat, and nervously waited. What if they are mechanical like Malp? She fretted, her obsessive compulsive scholarly side taking hold of her. Celestia couldn’t stay saying she needed to look into something about these creatures. What the hay could that be? And where is that consultant that Celestia had said would he here? What was she? Oh yes, a xenobiologist. Well that should prove useful; I only wish I knew who this mystery pony was. The lavender mare was so lost in thought and worry, again, that she barely felt the hoof nudge her right shoulder. She nearly screamed at being shaken from her thoughts and was very glad that she didn’t. Celestia had wanted to make sure everything was secure and had ordered several of her personal guards to protect the lab for as long as the creatures were viewed as a possible threat. And Twilight knew there were about twenty of them just outside the door, just waiting for any notice that something had gone wrong.
        Twilight looked over at an apologetic Rarity and then to where she was pointing at, Malp. The little black box sitting on the tuning fork, that Twilight believed was its eyes, was moving and settled the clear circular spot directly on the two waiting unicorns. The machination remained quiet and still which Twilight knew from experience it could do for days at a time. Is it getting ready for the arrival? She pondered, realizing there was less than five minutes before she could finally see what these beings looked like.
        Out of the corner of her eyes she spotted movement by the void, the surface of the large opaque circle had gone from pond still to rippling at multiple locations around its surface. She really wanted to charge up a defensive spell just in case in didn’t actually come in peace, but Celestia had warned that they may be able to detect magic with their technology and if they could they might view it as a hostile or aggressive action, especially if she started charging it just before their dignitary team was to arrive. 
Oh No! she started to look around the room, realizing she forgot something and looking for anything that could be quickly used to solve the problem. There was no step in front of the void. It hadn’t been a problem with Malp, it seemed to have been designed with problems like that in mind, but any living creature she knew of would take that one foot drop rather badly, especially if they had a step on their side. She wanted to move, but she was representing the princess and had to maintain the proper decorum, especially if they were watching her through Malp. That was the only thing that made sense, and it would explain why it took so long to get responses from it, messages always took time to travel to their destination. 
Out of the ripple at the bottom of the void Twilight saw what looked like a shiny black hoof emerged and set itself down on the floor of the research facility, with the front of the hoof being a lot longer than that of the average pony’s. Then, several feet above the hoof she saw a black mane start to come through. It IS a quadruped! This didn’t really surprise her as most life she was familiar with walked around, or could walk around, on four legs. She was excited that the life coming through wasn’t too dissimilar from what she expected. Maybe it’s just from a different evolutionary path, not able to stand the anticipation anymore, Twilight started to fidget.
That was when Twilight noticed that the movements were off, the front leg should be moving forward. Instead it was staying stationary while the head continued to come through followed by two more appendages at its sides. ARMS! It was in fact a biped. Such a discovery! The first extra-equestrian life to be discovered is a biped! She stopped dead. Focus! FOCUS! It could still be a threat, it was still an unknown. The lavender mare berated herself. Then she started to worry about how magic would affect it.
As the creature finished exiting the void, it moved forward and Twilight could finally get a good look at it, and she felt very underdressed. The creature stood at about six foot tall, just tall enough to look her mentor in the eyes, and it was fully clothed. Not the fully clothed a pony would have thought of with just a tie or a collar. This was full-on Gala style clothing, the only skin or fur that the mare could see was on its hands and its head. The clothing was mostly black with the only white piece being the shirt under his jacket. The suit looked similar to what a stallion would wear on very formal occasions with a jacket with a lapel or collar and a dark blue necktie. The jacket and trousers had small gray vertical stripes and the shoes were a polished black. Its four appendages seemed to be of equal length with the arms ending in hands, but unlike the hands she was used to seeing on creatures they had no claws on them. It really did look like a less muscular minotaur with longer legs, and less fur. From what she could tell it only kept fur on top of its head and a little on its hands. The creature’s skin seemed so bland, being a creamish olive color; Twilight was used to seeing more color in a creature. And the face just seemed so strange; she wondered how it could see out of such small eyes and both so far forward on its head. That would leave it with major blind spots and how could it detect anything with such small ears? And while the rest of the head seemed to be in the right places, everything just seemed so small on its head. 
The strange creature moved forward about five feet, balancing on its two long legs, keeping its arms at its side the whole time. “Hello.” It stated. “My name Anthony Marcus. In peace come.” Well, Twilight thought, at least it sounds better than what Malp would say, this at least sounds like it comes out of something alive. 
Before Twilight could test her theory about the time it would take it to translate a sentence, Rarity stepped forward to introduce herself. “Hello there Anthony Marcus, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am the lady Rarity and this is my friend Twilight Sparkle. Are you the entirety of the diplomatic envoy?” She stated it in her most regal voice, ever the proper lady. 
That is a good question; would they not send more than just one? Or at least send some guards with it. Although we still don’t know what Malp can do, maybe that’s its job. Twilight wondered, waiting for the new being to respond.
After a few seconds of him looking stunned, Twilight thought it was due to the overly complicated words her friends had used, the creature responded. “No. Two more.” As if on cue, two more of the creatures started to come through the void, they were both similar in height and build to the first one, but their suits were just black and they fit slightly looser and they had no ties. They flanked the first creature. The one on the left had a reddish-brown mane and blue eyes while the one on the right had a yellowish mane and grey eyes. They both seemed to have a base skin color of cream but they seemed to be more towards the brown side, as if they spent too much time in the sun without fur.
Finally a color I can recognize, nopony has grey eyes. Twilight couldn’t believe they all looked so much alike. 
The first creature seemed to notice that its companions had arrived and introduced them. “This one” the first creature said pointing to the yellowish-maned one “Avery Anwar.” It then pointed at the other one “This Victor Sizemore. We come learn.”
“Psst,” Twilight can hear her friend trying to talk to her. “Do you see their clothing? Why didn’t you tell me this was such a formal event?” The fashion pony sounded half panicked, afraid she wasn’t showing her best for such regal dignitaries. They may look similar to Diamond Dogs, but they dress much nicer. And are clean. She thought.
“You really think I knew about this and didn’t tell you?” Her friend responded “Besides, you look great. Now, what can you tell me about their clothing?” Twilight was hoping her friend could contribute some useful information. Where is that expert? 
“Well, yes.” Rarity laughs slightly. “I do look fabulous. But the fabric appears woven. And look at the weave, it’s so much nicer on the one in the middle, he must be the leader. And the clothing on the other two is loose.”
“Is that strange?” Twilight was glad she had her friend with her, she knew next to nothing about clothing and at least this way she wasn’t going in blind.
“Well, it could just be that they don’t rank high enough to afford clothing that is perfectly fitted to them.”
“Or?” Twilight could tell there was a but there, something being left unsaid.
“Or, it could be to hide a weapon, probably something like a knife.” Rarity hadn’t wanted to voice those thoughts.
Twilight sighed. “Of course they are probably armed. This is a strange planet and they sent a machine to make sure it was safe for them to come. Would you expect an Equestrian dignitary to do any less?”
“Well no.” Rarity conceded “But do you have any idea what they are?”
“Judging from the looks of them I would have to say monkeys.” Twilight judged, “They are clearly primates. The only problem is that all primates that have ever encountered could never be civil enough to form a proper society.”
Twilight barely got this belief out before she heard a gasp coming from the shocked Rarity. Oh the scandal if these dignitaries were to understand what was just said.
At the same time Twilight hears a sharp laugh by the door. A familiar laugh. Oh buck me, Twilight thinks, not her. She won’t turn around to acknowledge the intrusion.
The new voice decided to speak up and correct the uniformed pony. “They are clearly related to apes and not monkeys, any basic scientist should know the difference. I would have expected Princess Celestia’s personal student to know better.” The voice came out haughty and arrogant, like that of two foal-hood rivals that now argue using their knowledge to insult each other. “Actually look at them. The differences are more pronounced than those between a pony and a zebra.” Twilight could hear the clopping sound getting closer and the words getting louder, the newcomer was approaching her from the doorway. “Ignoring the fact that they are walking upright and using tools. They have no tails whatsoever and their clothing doesn’t leave enough room for one even if they did. They have a rounded nasal passage, not slits; they use their eyes over their noses. Large cranium size when compared to the rest of their body; which makes sense if they are tool users, and advanced ones at that. If you want I can go on, there are quite a few more I could go over.” Twilight could practically feel the smile radiating off of her tormentors face. 
Twilight turned her head to side to see the intruder, a mint green unicorn mare with cyan-grey and white mane and a lyre for a cutie mark. “Thank you for the clarification Lyra.” Twilight deadpanned, rather not having to have seen this pony again. “By the way, you’re late.” Twilight mustered all the enthusiasm she could, which was none.
Lyra’s eyes flashed with anger for a second before she got her emotions back under control. “Do you have any idea where I was or what I was doing? I was out in the wilds, beyond the borders of Equestria, studying changelings. After their attack on Canterlot it was decided that they needed to be studied to better find a defense or any indication when they might attack again. Do you have any idea how long it took to get set up near their hive without being spotted? Three months of work lost, just when I was starting to gather valuable information. The letter from Celestia nearly gave away my position. I had to fight my way out of there, not all of us can teleport. Maybe if you had set up the meeting for when you were supposed to-“
Lyra’s rant was broken by the soft coughing of Rarity who was trying to get the fighting mares’ attention. “Do you think this is the best time for your bickering? We do have foreign dignitaries after all.” She stated never letting her regal façade drop.
Lyra looked at Twilight and nodded her head imperceptibly and in a much calmer tone asked “So, what was so important.”

> Secrets
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        It had been about an hour since the black sedan with tinted windows had picked him up from the Las Vegas airport. He had to assume it was the CIA, the same people that had hired him and paid for his flight from Japan to Vegas. Yeah, that worked out well. They made it for the earliest flight once I had agreed to come. They didn’t even give me enough time to upgrade the seats. Fifteen hour flight in coach, not fun. Anthony Marcus thought to himself. He always hated those long flights and tended to make sure he was in first class, especially when he seemed to get sat next to the people wanting to sleep on his shoulder. Thankfully there were no crying babies on his flight.
Anthony was a multilingual translator working in Japan and would contract out for the United Sates government from time to time, but never stayed after his job was finished; there were too many constrictions on what he could and couldn’t do. He did like that they always had unique jobs for him that broke the monotony, like when they had needed a document translated from Farsi to Chinese. But this time was different; the amount they had offered for three months’ worth of work and the promise of rights to publish a paper on any discoveries he made once it was made public was too much to resist. All they would tell him was that it had to do with a new language they had discovered. More than likely someone had invented a new language, conlang, and they needed someone to figure out what it meant. He had spent most of his life around language and learned most of them so that he could see more of the world, except for the one he had learned because of a cute girl in school. After that he started looking at conlangs like Klingon and Esperanto; looking at their strengths and weaknesses and proposing that preconceived notions would always limit what new languages could truly do. 
        The sedan slowed down and stopped but the tinted windows kept their occupant from seeing out into where they were parked until the driver came around and opened up the door to the back seat. As the door opened, Anthony was blinded by the harsh light of the sun in the desert. He stepped out onto a large salt flat and saw that the vehicle was parked in the middle of the flat, next to a squarish two story building with what appeared to be a flat roof. It was utilitarian and an off white color with windows only on the second level. He thought he could see a building to the left, but it was too far away to be sure. There were a few other cars, but not many, most were black and polished. The man that had opened the door for him was also the driver and a monster of a man. At what looked like six foot five inches and 300 pounds, he was easily taller than the six foot linguist he was escorting. 
        Before Anthony could take a good look at the surrounded area, he was escorted through a steel door into the utilitarian building. The first thing he noticed was the size, the roof was a good fourteen feet above the cement flooring. The first floor was a single room at least 150 feet across and 100 feet wide. There was a bank of workstations which contained computers and other doodads he had no clue the function of in front of the door, and a white plastic enclosure in the middle of the room and a set of stairs against the other wall to his left. There were large pieces of expensive looking scientific machines pushed up against the walls; with a group of men working around a small treaded robot in front of the white ‘tent’. What have I gotten myself into? He started to worry; experience told him it was too late to back out though, so he continues to follow his guide up the stairs
        As they ascended the stairs, Anthony became more and more nervous, especially upon seeing the mass of cubicles at the top of the stairs. The second floor had a wall running through the middle of it that connected the two longer walls, leaving an almost squarish room full of people working in casual suits. As they walked past the cubicles toward the door in the middle of the wall, he could feel several eyes on him. The farther they progressed through the building, the more trepidation the translator felt. This wasn’t a small operation; this setup had to have a major budget, which more than likely meant ‘national security’. 
Can this possibly get any worse? He asked himself as they exited out into a small hallway. To his left were two restrooms, each clearly labeled for men or women. Across from him were two more doors, one said ‘dining’ while the other said ‘Director’ and had a small red couch next to it. 
He was stopped on his way to sit down by the gruff voice of the guard. “No. You’re expected.” The guard uttered as he opened the door.
As Anthony entered the room the bottom dropped out of his stomach. “I guess it can.” He muttered, hoping that only he could hear it as he spotted the red-haired woman in a business suit sitting at the desk.
The President of the United States indicated the chair on his side of the desk. “Please sit Mr. Marcus, There’s a bit we have to discuss.” As he moved toward one of the two chairs, he could hear the door close behind him. She opened up a file on her desk and looked through it as he took a seat. Anthony took a moment to look around the room; everything was nicely furnished in dark woods and plush red fabric. He was broken out of his reverie as his President started speaking to him again. “Looks like you are well qualified. Good education, good schools but no PhD. Why?” She looked back up at him expecting an answer.
“Well, Ma’am.” He took a calming breath and tried to make sure he kept breathing. “A PhD is rather pointless for translation and is only needed for teaching at a University and required more work than I felt it was worth.”
“It also states that you know; what is it, six or seven languages fluently and have published a few papers on the purpose of constructed languages. Was that not a lot of work?” President Tow enquired, trying to determine what his reaction would be.
“Well, that was more for fun. Besides, I really don’t want to teach.” Anthony replied. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind me asking, what am I doing here? This sounds an awful lot like an interview, and as far as I know I’ve already been hired for something.” He really would have rather let her get to the point on her own time; but, this was something major and he didn’t like being kept in the dark.
President Tow quirked a smile and looked past the linguist to something he couldn’t see. “Agent Reed. How long until the M.A.L.P. is ready?” She asked, already knowing the answer.
“It’s ready now.” The gruff voice of his escort responded. “What would you like them to do?”
She thought for a moment. “Have them send it now. This shouldn’t take that much longer. And, if you could escort Mr. Marcus here to a lab station downstairs when we are done?”
“Yes Ma’am. Anything else?”
“Yes, hook him into the M.A.L.P. feed along with its recordings. That is all.” She stated as she turned her attention back to the man sitting across from her. “A Little over three months ago, we had a mishap with an experiment here and lost several good researchers. What we found in its place was a large white circle that we called ‘the anomaly’. A few days later some instruments that were monitoring it started picking up strange EM readings.” He was paying close attention, but she knew the next part would be hard for anyone to believe. “It turns out what we were receiving was an alien communication.”
Anthony just stared at her for a minute. This has to be some kind of a joke or something. Either that or the Chinese came up with some sort of new language, like we did with Navajo in World War 2 and they just don’t want that information released. He consoled himself, aliens couldn’t possibly exist. “So, will I be staying here?” Hopefully they’ll put me up in a decent hotel; I’d hate to have to sleep on a cot.
“Unfortunately, you won’t be able to leave for the next three months. You will study what you can of the language for the next two days. We believe that the anomaly is actually a gateway, and if it proves safe, you will be going there to learn the language for the rest of that time. We already sent word to your wife that you will be gone.” President Tow knew that he didn’t believe her; most people wouldn’t. But, he didn’t get a say on the matter, not at this point. Lifting her right hand towards the door she said. “If you will follow Agent Reed here, he will show you to your workstation. Good luck.”
Anthony would have liked to get a few more answers but knew what being dismissed looked like. As he stood up he put his hand across the wooden table to shake the President’s hand, he had too, he might never get a chance like this again. After shaking her hand, he followed Agent Reed back out into the corridor. If I knew I would be fully sequestered here, I would have left a note or something. His wife was an MP at Camp Zama Army base in Japan, he’d always been happy that she’d been placed there at about the same time he’d gotten his first job translating in Tokyo, and they were less than an hour apart by train. Anthony was so distracted by these competing thoughts that he had barely noticed when they returned back to the computer terminals on the first floor.
Anthony saw Agent Reed pointing at the first console and he sat down at it. All he had was a computer screen to watch whatever events were about to happen unfold. On the screen he could see from what had to be a mounted camera pointed at something white, he could make out a robotic arm at the edge of the screen.
“Confirmed. No damage to the M.A.L.P. arm, sending it back through the anomaly now.” The voice came through a set of speakers set up along the bank of consoles; with each computer being manned by a serious looking people in either suits or lab coats. On the screen, the camera moved closer to the white field, and as the arm touched it, the surface of the anomaly rippled and the arm disappeared. “Camera passing through the anomaly now; should have picture any second now.”
Anthony started to question his assumptions now, if this were a trick they would never have gone through this level of detail or expense.
“Receiving signal, cleaning it up.” As the M.A.L.P. operator spoke, the screen showed an empty white room. “Passing mid-way point of ingress.” As this last line was spoken, the camera took a sudden shuddering jolt and the view was suddenly of the floor. “M.A.L.P. should finish passing through in 3…2…1.” The camera took another shuddering jump as it reoriented itself to being level with the floor; all that could be seen was a white room and a wooden door at the far end. “Stopping Forward motion. Panning camera right.”  As the camera moved, something slowly came into view, something purple. The object was quadrupedal and had a face. It looked like a colorful small horse with an overly large head and anime eyes.
As the camera centered the purple pony, Anthony heard a mechanical sound come through the speakers, but it was unintelligible as anything other than noise. After a few seconds the sound repeated. The pony sat on its haunches and started making noises of its own. That’s language! The linguist was stunned. Alien life! Is it hot in here? His mind shifted tracks as his vision went blurry and then black. 

Anthony woke up propped in a chair. He could see the smirks of the people around him. He grabbed a proffered cup of water, took a sip and straightened back up. “Do you have someplace I can watch the video from the M.A.L.P. and whatever recordings you have?”
The tech in front of him, the one who’d handed him the water, just pointed to the terminal he was at. “Yeah, it’s already been setup. You just can’t talk to them live, not until you get there.” 
The workers slowly depart back to their stations, leaving him to his work. Down to work I guess. He put on a pair of headphones; while Anthony did have a guide book from whoever did the original translating job, he wanted to hear what it sounded like without outside opinions. He then selected the video of when the rover had first passed through the anomaly.
What the heck is this? Anthony asked himself. It took the linguist a few minutes to start to differentiate the syllables in this new language and to get a feel for how it flowed. All these sound are in human languages. He thought, surprised that it would still follow human sound structures to such a degree. After parsing the language a little, he pulled out some paper and started writing notes to himself. It doesn’t sound like any language from Earth and yet it sounds familiar, like I’ve heard it before. It contains several glottal stops and each syllable appears to begin with a consonant. The consonants are also very prominent causing the language to sound harsh and guttural. But there was also something else he considered. And yet it sounds lyrical.
Anthony pulled out over the folder sitting on a nearby desk titled Basic Structure and Vocabulary for Extraterrestrial Language. He started going through the book while still listening to the audio files he had access to. 

While we have yet to fully understand the word order it appears to be subject verb object. While this cannot be confirmed yet, all audio samples indicate this phenomenon. Their basic greeting appears to sound like nook-NEKH and contains some sort of connotations that have yet to be fully understood. mah ghoS roj is the phrase for I come in peace and should be uttered during first contact. Some other words we have deciphered are gharwI’ (diplomat), ghom (group), qempa’ (deity, god, whether this refers to a specific deity is yet to be understood), nuH (something dangerous, i.e. weapons)


Anthony continued to read the approximately 20 pages of research they currently had on this language. Still unsure why it sounded so familiar and yet alien. The one thing the translator was sure of though was that it wasn’t related to any language he was familiar with.

Avery and Victor were sitting on the red couch waiting to see the director. They had been called in from their vacation in Vegas and were wearing jeans and Hawaiian shirts. Avery was six foot two inches, slightly taller than his counterpart, but it was slight enough to not notice. They tended to work with each other and were on CIA missions. Avery had started working in the Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Agency over a decade before and had trained Victor on a few missions about six years prior. They worked well as a team and were effective at their designated jobs, Victor still wore the scars on his left arm from a mission in Columbia that had gone belly up. 
Victor turned to his partner. “Think we’ll get to see the greys they have in storage?” he asked, referring to the belief that the CIA kept remains of aliens from a crash in 1947. 
Avery barely shook his head. “You know that story is completely fake. Someone’s been watching too many movies.” 
“That’s pretty funny coming from you. Besides, can’t blame a guy for hoping.” Victor tended to use humor to break the tension before a mission. “Any idea why we’re here?” He switched to serious; as of yet, they had been told nothing.
“Same as you, just that we needed to come.” This was unusual; they had never been called in from a vacation and were usually given weeks to prepare for a new mission, unless it was an emergency. So they just sat and waited.
After about ten minutes they heard a woman’s voice coming through the intercom next to the door. “You can come in.” They both stiffened. They both stood up and opened the door. Upon seeing the president they closed the door and stood at attention. 
President Tow let them stand for another minute, trying to judge what kind of people they were. “Please, sit down.” She pointed to the two chairs sitting in front of them. Both agents sat rigidly, awaiting whatever grim news they were about to receive. As far as they knew, she was supposed to be at Camp David on a vacation herself.  
“You two will be going on a unique mission, but before I give you any information you will get one chance to back out.” She spoke as they barely even flinched. “Ok then.” She handed them each a folder. “In there is the information we have on an anomaly that appeared here due to an experiment a few months ago. We received some sort of language using very sensitive mics; it is believed to be from an alien life form. We currently have a probe on the other side to see if it is safe for human exploration.” Both operatives continue their stoic positions, waiting for whatever their job would be. “You will be there to guard a translator, but you will also have the responsibility of doing an independent threat assessment.” She paused, giving her guests a chance to ask any questions.
Avery asked the obvious question, “Is this translator with the agency?”
The president shook her head, “No. We have used him before but he’s not from the CIA.” She hoped this wouldn’t be a problem; this was a delicate game of chess and she wouldn’t let any of these three embarrass her. 
“Why isn’t someone going who has experience in the field? Jarry would do, we’ve worked with him before.” Avery asked. He’d wanted to be more assertive until he remembered who he was talking to.
“That’s the problem.” She responded. “We don’t know what kind of technology or how advanced it is. Jarry is the person that made the initial breakthroughs on their language; we couldn’t afford to lose him if something went wrong.” Neither man flinched at being told they were essentially expendable; they knew what all those stars were for at Langley, and that they would likely become one. “And from what Jarry could decipher, and from what the M.A.L.P. has shown us,  it looks like they use magic. We couldn’t risk the kind of sensitive information that he holds to fall into their hands.”
“So they can read minds?” Victor asked, a little disturbed.
“We don’t know, but there are few chances being taken at this stage. You will leave in the morning. Any other questions?” She knew there would be.
“So we aren’t getting all the information that you have then?” Avery asked, trying to plan out his mission.
“No, everything you need to need is in those folders, but nothing that could compromise the security of this facility or country.” 
“Good.” Avery hated being kept in the dark, it made it harder to get out alive if the shit hit the fan, but in this instance he agreed.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at Camp David?” Victor asked. If he might die, he wanted to know why the President herself decided to brief them.
“Who could resist first contact with aliens; besides, it’s not the first time a Camp David trip has been used as a cover.” President Tow replied, figuring it was no great secret. “If that’s all, you two are dismissed. And take a gun with you, but make it small and keep it hidden.”
Victor and Avery both stood up and left the room. After the door closed Avery told Victor, “Don’t say it.”
“But I didn’t say anything.” Victor pleaded innocently.
Avery smiled, knowing exactly where this was going and trying not to laugh or groan. “Yet. You haven’t said anything yet.”
Victor stayed quiet for a moment as they walked down towards the kitchen to get some food. “I guess we do get to see aliens, Think they look like the ones from Roswell?”
	

> Arrival pt 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Anthony was standing in front of the anomaly, getting ready to go through it. None of the researchers knew what it would feel like, but they assured him that he would live through it with little to no damage. Because that is so comforting, He thought. He wasn’t scared so much as nervous, the first human to step on a foreign planet, maybe even dimension. The feeling to run was coming from the anomaly, every time he came near it, all he wanted to do was run. He couldn’t do that though, he had a job to do. 
        Anthony was surprised to be flanked by two men in suits without ties. The CIA told him that they were bodyguards in case anything went wrong. Bet they’re Secret Service, they definitely look it, right down to the P229’s they carried. He didn’t really know much about weaponry, but he did pick up a few things from the news, and his wife. The plan was for him to go through first and if there were any problems, his guards could use the M.A.L.P.’s telemetry to figure out how best to enter. 
        The step in front of the anomaly had been removed, without a step on the other side; all it would have done was make it more awkward to step through. A small step would be sent over with their supplies once arrangements had been made for his stay. Thankfully it was only a foot off the ground and not that difficult a step to manage for a fully grown human, just awkward since nothing was known about what happened if you touched the outer edge of the anomaly. The white tent that had previously been housing the anomaly had also been moved so that all the staff could watch this historic moment.
        Anthony approached the anomaly, he really wanted to quote Henry V, but that one would require having gone through this thing at least once already. He almost lost his balance when putting his right foot through the anomaly, the sudden chill and electric shock his leg received, nearly made him lose his balance. He could still feel the foot, but anything that passed through or was touching the anomaly was affected by these sensations. When he felt his foot touch down on the other side, he ducked his head to pass it through next. Anthony ducked his head in the hope that it would protect his eyes from the chill and shock of passing through the anomaly, it didn’t work and he even felt it in his teeth. Wanting to get it over quickly, he finished stepping through the anomaly, first his arms and then his body and other leg. 
        Anthony stood on the other side of the anomaly and looked about the white room. He saw the M.A.L.P. off to the side, camera pointed directly at the two unicorns that were sitting down fifteen feet in front of the anomaly. He recognized the one on the right, it was the same purple one that he had seen on the video. The other one was completely new though, it was a white and purple unicorn, the mane looked styled and he could swear that it had on blue eyeliner. But, he thought, I can look at that later, first there is a job to do. He took a few steps forward, making sure to keep his hands at his sides to appear as less of a threat.
        “Hello.” He spoke calmly, trying to imitate their speed with his speech; he would have to go completely off of memory for this. “My name Anthony Marcus. In peace come.” He may have made some slight alterations to the CIA’s suggested language structures, but if he was to truly figure out this language then he needed to play with it.
        Anthony was a little surprised when the white one stepped forward and spoke up instead of the purple one. It spoke in a slow and methodical manner, but not like it was trying to make it easier to understand. The linguist clearly recognized the first part as a greeting and self-introduction; he’d heard enough of them over his life. The second part was a little harder to discern, but he heard the words for ‘group’ and ‘diplomat’ and was able to piece the rest from together from that.
        “No. Two more.” Anthony replied. At least they don’t seem hostile, he thought. He heard soft footsteps coming from behind him. The bodyguards flanked their charge and just stood there observing the room for threats. The linguist then turned to his right to see which guard had positioned himself where. “This one Avery Anwar.” He said, pointing to the blonde haired guard. He then pointed at the person on his left. “This one Victor Sizemore.” He returned his hand to his side and looked back at the two unicorns. “We come learn.”
        Anthony was surprised to see the two unicorns start to talk to each other, initiated by the white one. He was able to pick out a few words like ‘clothes’ and ‘weapon’ and a few glances from the two in his direction. I really hope clothing isn’t some sort of taboo here, that could get really awkward. He dreaded. About half way through their talk he spotted a new unicorn at the back of the room near the door. When the heck did she enter? This didn’t seem like the introductions he was expecting.
        Anthony was broken out of his train of thought when he heard a gasp coming from the first group of unicorns; he quickly looked over to see the white one staring at the purple one, who looked like it had no clue what just happened. A sharp, short sound emanated from the back of the room; it could only come from the green unicorn by the door. Why do they have to use such big words? He asked himself as the green one went into a long speech with very few recognizable words outside of their Deity’s name. 
        After a few minutes, Anthony heard a voice in his right ear; Avery was asking, “What are they talking about?”
        Anthony turned his head slightly to the side to make discussion easier. “I believe they are talking about us, judging by the direction of their gaze and the occasional hoof pointing.” He wanted to get the obvious out of the way first. “They started with greetings and then the first two starting talking about our clothing and some other things I couldn’t translate.” There was no way he was going to tell two bodyguards that weapons were being discussed if he didn’t know the exact context, that would only prove detrimental to their current goals of establishing peaceful relations. “But this current one, I have no clue what it’s saying and I doubt the folks back home will have any more luck than I am.” Anthony hoped that wouldn’t put the guard too much on edge. 
Anthony looked back just as the talk between the purple and the green one was broken up by the white one. That was when the green one stepped around the other two and came within five feet of the visiting humans. “Greetings. My name is Lyra Heartstrings and it is my pleasure to welcome you to Equestria. I would like to invite you to our cafeteria to have some dinner; I am assured we have quite the selection of food.” Lyra stated and pointed a hoof at the door. “However, you will not be allowed to eat meat outside of this facility and preferably not in any common areas, for now at least.” 
“How know eat meat?” He asked and hoped this wouldn’t cause too many issues. There were still al ot of words in there that he didn’t understand; but surprisingly he understood enough of what she was asking to get that she was offering food and what sounded like a slight concession. 
The mint green unicorn then pointed at its mouth and said one word. “Teeth.” The Lyra walked to the door and opened it. “Coming?” She asked.

> Waiting
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        She waited by the door as the two ponies selected as dignitaries talked about clothing. Lyra was glad that she had still managed to make it in time. Her chariot had dropped her only a few minutes before in front of the void facility; then she had to be scanned in and find the appropriate room. She was going to just stay quiet until Twilight made a very obvious mistake at calling these new creatures monkeys, at which point Lyra had to correct her. Lyra did miss when she and Twilight had been friends, but a spell mishap that could never be proven as an accident had happened while they were still studying magic together. That was before Lyra had left to study magic and then biology; they just drifted apart more and more over the years until they just couldn’t stand the sight of each other. 
. “They are clearly related to apes and not monkeys, any basic scientist should know the difference. I would have expected Princess Celestia’s personal student to know better.” Goad her, put her pride on the line, make her have to work. “Actually look at them. The differences are more pronounced than those between a pony and a zebra.” Come on, actually look, use that education. Lyra implored, they would have to work together on this whether they liked it or not. “Ignoring the fact that they are walking upright and using tools. They have no tails whatsoever and their clothing doesn’t leave enough room for one even if they did. They have a rounded nasal passage, not slits; they use their eyes over their noses. Large cranium size when compared to the rest of their body; which makes sense if they are tool users, and advanced ones at that. If you want I can go on, there are quite a few more I could go over.” Why couldn’t Twilight see any of this? Lyra had thought her rival more capable than this.
Twilight turned her head towards Lyra. “Thank you for the clarification Lyra.” Twilight deadpanned. But Lyra had expected the anger; Twilight had just been shown up and insulted, and at a very sensitive time. “By the way, you’re late.”
Lyra couldn’t control her sudden burst of anger,  “Do you have any idea where I was or what I was doing? I was out in the wilds, beyond the borders of Equestria, studying changelings. After their attack on Canterlot, it was decided that they needed to be studied to better find a defense or any indication when they might attack again. Do you have any idea how long it took to get set up near their hive without being spotted? Three months of work lost, just when I was starting to gather valuable information. The letter from Celestia nearly gave away my position. I had to fight my way out of there, not all of us can teleport.” But there was no way to know that the hive had ways of detecting subtle magic or that they were on such high alert. Lyra conceded.  But three months of setting up a base and two of figuring out where the changelings had moved to, gone, and just as results were starting to come in. I know I was only a few months away from figuring out what those cocoons they put ponies in are used for. So maybe her feelings weren’t completely magnanimous, but I was almost captured by creatures that nearly toppled Equestria less than a year ago. “Maybe if you had set up the meeting for when you were supposed to-“
Lyra’s thought process and anger was broken by the soft coughing of the third member of their little party. “Do you think this is the best time for your bickering? We do have foreign dignitaries after all.” The one Lyra knew as Rarity stated. 
Right. Job to do first. Lyra thought and gave a slight nod to Twilight and adjusted her voice to something more befitting of the occasion. “So, what was so important?” She asked. The xenobiologist figured it had something to do with the new creatures, but she hadn’t received any news in months and didn’t even know any new building had been constructed in Ponyville. It doesn’t help that I had no time after getting here for a proper briefing on any of this. Lyra simmered. “Never mind, I’ll figure this out.” She did have an idea based upon all the evidence she had seen so far.
Lyra stepped past the two mares and up to the three new creatures. She decided to address the one in the middle based upon Rarity’s judgment. Always trust the expert in their own field. A statement Lyra had gone off of many times, nopony could be an expert on everything. “Greetings. My name is Lyra Heartstrings and it is my pleasure to welcome you to Equestria.” Obviously they are new; they probably came out of that white field behind them. “I would like to invite you to our cafeteria to have some dinner; I am assured we have quite the selection of food. However, you will not be allowed to eat meat outside of this facility and preferably not in any common areas, for now at least.”
The lead alien’s eyes got bigger, but still smaller than the average pony’s as it stated in Equestrian, “How know eat meat?”
Now that is interesting. Lyra had noticed the pointed canines the moment she saw them. The fact that it was surprised means that they don’t have to routinely look out for predators, so they are at the top of their food chain. Lyra thought; deciding to take every precaution that was needed to with these creatures, she hadn’t failed to notice a slight bulge on two of the creature’s hips. She lifted up a hoof to her mouth and stated “Teeth.” Not knowing how much they knew, she wanted to keep it simple. 
Lyra walked over to the door and opened it. “Coming?” she asked. The creature in the middle raised one of its hands, indicating that it was what Lyra thought of as a sign of it not being ready. “Did you want your own food?” she asked; figuring they would have some sent from their own people until the safety of Equestrian food could be ascertained on their digestive systems. Or maybe they’re afraid of the local bacteria, they may be decently intelligent. Lyra conceded. 
“Yes, own food.” It stated. The creature in the middle then turned to the one on its left and started talking to it. “Victor, can you call in and tell them that everything is going good. Tell them we need a week’s worth of food at least and a way to test if the food here is toxic; they should have all that ready. Make sure to tell them no meat! From the sound of things, eating meat here won’t end well. Next, we need books: language, culture, history. It will make this entire process go quicker. And tell them that they appear sapient and very intelligent.” The creature it had talked to then pulled out a black rectangle with a stick on the end of it and started talking.
Lyra knew that she wouldn’t understand anything they said, so she took the opportunity to ask a few questions. “Twilight, how long are they staying for? I know I’m not in charge here, but I have the experience. So please, just this once, can we cooperate?” Lyra had a lot she needed to accomplish before those creatures finished their little chat.
“Um,” Twilight replied, taken off guard by the request and sensibility of the mint-green mare. “About three months. They’re here to study out language and culture.”
“Great, thanks.” Lyra then stuck her head out the door and talked to some of the assembled guards. Not knowing how much Equestrian the creatures knew or how good their hearing was, she switched to an older dialect of Equestrian that would be hard for any non-native speaker to understand. “I will need four of you to stay here; I don’t think they are going to try anything, not right now at least. I need everypony else to head to the cafeteria and position yourselves in there without armor. Make it look like you are just like any other pony sitting down to eat and keep a watch on the creatures as we enter; they are very familiar to certain creatures here that are known for being incredibly vicious.” The designated guards all moved towards their separate quarters to prepare for their assignment. 
Lyra then turned to the four remaining guards, all looking exactly the same. “Ok, I need one of you to go and take the first stack of books in my room and deliver them to wherever the alien delegates will be staying. It’s a stack of foal’s books on basic Equestrian.” And things will go much faster if I can get their leader to speak proper Equestrian fluently, she thought. Another guard took off towards her room to do as requested. “The rest of you can stay out here and respond to anything either me or Twilight says immediately.” After getting a nod of approval from the three remaining guards, she pulled her head back into the room and closed the door. 
When Lyra turned back around she noticed that the creatures were done talking and that her fellow unicorns were shifting their attention from the creatures to her, not knowing what to do. “What’s going on?” She asked.
“They said it will be about half an hour for their supplies to arrive.” Twilight responded, looking a little lost as to what she was supposed to do.
Lyra sighed. “Ok, you two can go. I can stay here and watch over them.” Twilight started to object but was cut off by Lyra. “No, if things go badly, Rarity won’t be able to do more than get in the way. And if things go right, neither will your skills. This is more my area, all we can get done for now is to observe and learn.”
Twilight looked between Lyra and the new creatures, worried for the xenobiologist’s safety. She felt like she had already abandoned Lyra once in school and didn’t want to do the same again, but Lyra had a point, a rude point, but a point nonetheless. “Ok, I’ll report to the Princess; if you can send her something of theirs to study.” Twilight quickly went on when she saw Lyra getting annoyed. “Celestia’s request, not mine. Something about their magic.” 
Lyra thought for a moment. “I will send her one of the basic language books for you both to look at, that way it will serve multiple purposes. And if you ever want to read about their species without hearing about it through me, you should learn the language well.” Lyra insulted, knowing full well that she would need help, and Twilight would more than likely be involved in this project for quite a while. 
Twilight nodded. “Good luck.” She wished, opened the door and left with her white-coated friend in tow.
Lyra closed the door behind the two departing mares using her magic, and proceeded to sit down next to the door. Now for the waiting game; and to see how much can be figured out and how quickly. Lyra then indicated with her hoof at the wall to her right. “Please sit, there’s no reason to stand while we wait.” The three creatures proceeded to sit down, but only the leader sat where she had indicated; the other two had selected the opposite wall and sat about five feet apart from each other. 
Lyra started watching the creatures. Their legs bent and crossed underneath them. I wonder if that is how they always sit or if they can fit in a chair for a pony. This did confirm that they weren’t a prey species though; that posture was ill designed for a quick escape. The leader had his back resting against the wall and his gaze would shift between her and what she thought were his guards.
They don’t seem like very attentive guards though. Lyra thought as she watched the other two creatures. I really need to know what they are called, and if these ones are male or female. The first guard “Victor” was sitting down on the ground and had his back hunched. It appeared like he was playing with some kind of toy. It was a cylindrical object with a rounded point on one end and flat on the other, it was metallic and the creature would keep spinning it on the ground of the void room. 
        The other one, “Avery” she thought, was sitting closer to her than the first one. It was reading a book in its right hand and was tapping out some sort of beat on one of its legs with the left. It read the book from right to left, very much unlike Equestrian books. The book intrigued Lyra though; the creature on the cover was similar to these three but looked much different. The creature on the cover had purple hair and cobalt blue eyes that looked more like pony eyes than human ones. Its limbs were thinner than those she was currently sitting with, and its face was far leaner, nearly coming to a point at the chin. Its hair was long enough to fall to waist height, but the creature looked as if it was falling. The clothing it wore was also far different than anything she had seen before; it was mostly a white long sleeved shirt with a green skirt and green mini-cape/lapel on the neck. Its chest also extended beyond that of its counterparts in Equestria. Was this what their other sex looks like? Lyra also noted that it was wielding a sword; so they do use bladed weapons, which would make them slightly less dangerous than if they used ranged weapons like bows. What surprised her still more though was that there was a different creature in the background with sharp teeth and claws, but a similar outline to these other ones, and from the context of the image, it looked like it was hunting the purple haired one. Now to figure out if it’s fictional or something they have to deal with. This would say that they aren’t the top of their food chain, but are hunted by something similar to them. This one looks different and those protuberances have a similar shape to mammary glands, so that may be a female. But if so… Lyra quickly became frustrated at the lack of information. She was having to restrain herself from ripping the book out of its hand to take a look at it herself, but she had no idea how it would react; for all she knew it would be seen as a sign of aggression and not curiosity. She decided to just sit and wait until she could start making observations and asking questions. 
        Lyra waited there for thirty minutes while the leader just sat still and the two ‘guards’ kept either reading or playing with the toy. They must be really skilled or really confident, unless they serve another purpose, she pondered. 
        A burst of noise came from the strange device that had been left by the void, followed by what sounded like a language. “Package incoming in 30.”  The two creatures quickly got up and moved towards the void. 
        Lyra tensed, she didn’t know what they were doing but they had packed up their things and were up and moving quicker than she ever would have expected. “Avery” had used its right hand to put the book into its jacket and put the left on the ground for lift. The creature then pivoted ninety degrees to its left using the hip, it then lifted and planted its right foot on the ground and lifted itself the rest of the way to erect; the whole thing took only a second or two and it was moving. They both stood near the center of the void and waited. After a few seconds a pair of steps emerged from the void, just two that were connected and made out of a material she had never seen. The two creatures grabbed it and set it down in front of the void and pushed it right up to the surface of the void; to the point where it started the void rippling. After a few more seconds a second shape emerged from the void, a plain wooden crate about a foot from the bottom of the void. Each creature grabbed one end of the crate and started pulling it out. The crate looked heavy; the two creatures seemed to be having trouble lifting it out of the void. Once it had fully emerged they set it on the ground. The crate was four foot long with either end being a two foot square. 
        Lyra looked at the creatures as they started going through the crate. “Did you bring adequate food?” She asked of the creatures. They started talking to each other and “Victor” pulled out three packs of something. Lyra quickly grabbed the three items in her magic; surprised at how much effort it took. She quickly set them down next to her so she didn’t run out of strength. 
The two creatures she identified as guards had quickly moved and put their hands under their shirts near their hips. Something she knew as a possible threat posture. “Dinner” She said, hoping it would be clear enough to defuse things. The leader talked to the other two and they reluctantly lowered their hands, and then the machine off to the side started to move. 
Her heart rate picked up; afraid of what that thing was going to do. All the machine did was move over to in front of the void and slowly ascend the steps and pass through to the other side. After it passed all the way through; one of the guards, she couldn’t keep them straight, put the sleeve up to its mouth and spoke, “Understood.” And the two groups just began to watch each other.
Lyra picked up the three bags of what she hoped were food, “If you would please follow me to the cafeteria for some food. While we do that the guards will take your things to your rooms you will be staying in. I hope that won’t be a problem.” After she had finished talking; the door into the room opened and two unicorn guards in full regalia entered. From their position near the door they lifted the crate and moved it towards themselves, and then out the door and to the right, towards the dormitories. Whether the creatures understood her or not; they made no move to stop the guards. Finally I can get something to eat; it has been too long of a day. Lyra thought as she led the creatures down the hall to the cafeteria.

> Cultural Exchange
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evening of Day 1
        I may have overlooked something, Lyra thought to herself as she opened the door to the void facility’s cafeteria. As she opened the door, sixteen pairs of guard ponies eyes looked in her direction; she could feel the guards behind her getting tense. Oh buck. Lyra never considered that the guards would think of each other as threats, or that the guard ponies would stare at the newcomers so intently with a few reaching for weapons hidden under the table or charging their horns, as if waiting for them to make a mistake. I may have gone a bit far in warning them of the threat. 
        As Lyra looked out over the tables she saw that most of them were filled up with the multihued guards. The cafeteria was rather small and only housed about six tables, with each able to seat six ponies. At one table, she noticed the Drill Instructor for the Equestrian guard that had trained her in hoof to hoof combat. The DI, Aquatica, was a royal blue unicorn with a mane just a few shades lighter and a half a head taller than any other pony there. Her back was to Lyra, the DI was the only guard pony not staring at the potential threat, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t paying attention; it just meant she was really good at her job. Lyra also knew from experience that Aquatica was vicious, even in training her own guards. All she cared about was if they could do the job, ‘better experience pain here than out in the field’ was one of her favorite sayings; and since she knew some healing magic she could push them harder before having to send them to the infirmary. 
        Lyra also noticed a gray pegasus stallion sitting at the same table but had no clue as to his name, talking with an unknown ice blue earth pony. The thing most ponies didn’t realize about the royal guard was that the white coat and blue hair was a special spell placed on the armor. It was designed to make them appear more of a threat and harder to identify an individual pony. Once the armor was off, their natural colorations would come back. 
        Now, Lyra thought, I just need to find us a place to sit before the two sides start a fight.
        “Over here!” Stated a familiar voice to the left of the door. Twilight Sparkle was sitting at an empty table with two trays of food on top of it; and motioning them over; the chairs had been removed so that everyone could sit comfortably on the floor and eat at table height. 
        Lyra moved over to the table with her charges in tow. “If you would please sit and enjoy your food.” She stated to the creatures. She sat across from Twilight and asked, “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to leave with Rarity.” Not that Lyra wasn’t grateful for the save.
        Twilight lowered her head, a little chagrined. “Well, it seemed like you might need some help. Besides, I lead Rarity out then just came back here.” A stack of books then began to float from next to Twilight and over the table to Lyra. “And I thought you might need some of these so you could start right away.” The book on top was Easy Equestrian Expression, a guide to learning basic sentence structures. Lyra recognized it as the stack she had told the guards to take to the delegate’s room. 
        Lyra was a little mad at being countermanded, but she realized Twilight was just trying to help and had prevented what could have been a nasty altercation. “Thank you for thinking ahead. They don’t seem to like each other.”
        “Well, you did tell them the new creatures could be a grave threat. Why do you think they reacted so strongly to each other? I saw the two guards reaching towards their hips.” Twilight tilted her head hoping for an explanation from the local expert. 
        Lyra thought for a moment, looking back on the situation. “That may have been my doing.” Lyra felt rather sheepish at having to admit this. “I startled them with a use of my magic. I don’t think they knew we could levitate materials. And the fact that a soldier can spot other soldiers; which in essence is what a guard is.”
        “That makes some sense. I was afraid it may have been that all they have seen so far has been unicorns, or that they aren’t used to this many creatures in one place.” Twilight stated these as if, anypony would have thought of the same things. 
        Lyra enveloped the books sitting on the table over to the leader of the creatures. “Read.” She stated and turned back towards Celestia’s prized student, Lyra wanted to focus on this chat without ignoring the delegates. “Wait, all they’ve seen so far has been unicorns? And what do you mean that they aren’t used to this many bodies in one place?”
        “Well, the only ones they have seen so far were either these three or through their fancy machine, and that only included me, Rarity, and a Professor from the school of magic. They may have been surprised to see all three types at once without a heads up.” Something Lyra wouldn’t have thought about yet, being so used to treating the different pony races as one species.  “As for the number of ponies, think about it. They have highly advanced technology, do they really need that many of themselves to create a society?” Twilight asked. 
        “That will need a little more research to conclude. It could be that because things are easier; they can produce more of themselves to create more thinkers and researchers. That way they could expand their knowledge and understanding at a faster rate every year.” Lyra concluded. Always need more information. She conceded.
        All the while the three delegates had opened up their prepackaged food and started eating it. The two guards were constantly watching the other ponies in the room while eating. Once handed the books the linguist started to go through them one by one, seeing what he could figure out.

Morning of Day 3
        Avery had just gotten up out of his bed. He had no complaints about the accommodations; they had been given two adjoining rooms. Avery and Victor had taken the first one so that Anthony could have his room to study in; both sides needed their privacy. The beds were just three smaller ones pushed together for each person and sitting on the floor. This was fine for the SAD operatives; they had both slept on worse, but the ponies said they would be getting custom beds within the next week, or so the translator said. 
        Avery had just finished packing up the samples he and Victor had taken the day before. The first batch of vials contained water samples to be sent back through the anomaly for testing, the second contained air samples. There was also a box of food they had gathered from the cafeteria. The tests were to provide biological samples of the environment here; to see if anything on this planet was safe for humans. The M.A.L.P. had taken samples, but those were just to see if it was possible for this planet to support human life; oxygen, carbon dioxide, gravity, atmospheric pressure were all tested and found safe. The one thing they had yet to test for was biological contaminants, anything that could damage a human. This would determine if they could ever even return to Earth or if they would have to stay in quarantine and for how long. 
        They delivered a report to their superiors every morning. It would include any events or finding they had discovered along with copies of all the research notes and the ponies’ capabilities. They didn’t have much to report yet other than the fact that they had soldiers located here, but they hadn’t seen as many as on that first day, if those were all soldiers. The day before had been pretty calm with them just watching over their charge as he studied with either Lyra or Twilight for fourteen hours. 

Midday of Day 8
        Twilight was dismayed at the human’s poor language skills in Equestrian. “It’s pronounced yaj’a’ not yaja. yaja isn’t even a word.” The ‘teacher’ blew air through her nose in annoyance. Thankfully he gave us that nice little chart of sounds so these words can be written out. Twilight still sighed, teaching Equestrian to a non-native was harder than she thought it would be, languages in Equestria tended to be universal.
        Twilight turned her head quickly to the left at the sound of another pony snickering. Lyra had a hoof to her mouth and was trying to stifle the laughter that wanted to come out at the sight of Twilight not knowing how to do something. 
        Twilight just turned back towards Anthony and picked up a quill in her magic to scribble the sounds he would have to follow to actually say he understood something. 
        “Need some Help?” Lyra asked around her snickering.
        “Like you would have an easier time at this?” Twilight quipped.
        Lyra’s face turned instantly serious. “You do know that changeling speak two languages, right. The second on is so that other species can’t eavesdrop and figure out their plans.” 
        Twilight instantly felt bad about the insult and the anger she could clearly see on Lyra’s face. “Sorry, I forgot.” Twilight had recently heard stories passed between the guards about what Lyra had gone through in the badlands. “Since you have more experience, why don’t you take over the teaching of Equestrian and I will cover history. We can even split up schedules so we can work on lesson plans and cataloguing the information.”
        Lyra looked contemplative for a moment while considering this change to the plans. Lyra agreed; with all the guards around it wasn’t like they posed any kind of a threat. “But we can start that tomorrow; today we finish what was already planned. 
        Anthony took this moment to finish looking at the paper and said, “yaj’a’” 

Afternoon of Day 20
        Why does this remind me of Grad school? Anthony asked himself, again. Oh yeah, fourteen hour days every day. He’d been spending most of the day with Lyra, going over basic grammar and structure so far and then Twilight would go over Equestrian history in the afternoon. This would change later once he became more fluent and could maintain longer conversations. The information didn’t go just one way; he would instruct them in English and human history using the books from the initial crate. But he also learned rather early on that their word order was actually object verb subject, the opposite of English.
        “NO!” His instructor yelled at him, stopping any other conversations in the cafeteria and turning all the heads towards the bickering pair. He was having what constituted his 3pm lunch and talking basic hierarchy of Equestria with Twilight Sparkle, who was not a happy pony. “Celestia raises the sun. Every. Day. The planet couldn’t take care of itself without the help of ponies.” Twilight was more than a little irate, this argument had been going on for a while and neither side had been willing to budge.
        “No, Galileo proved that planets move around larger objects. If I brought the books you could see the equations and the science.” He knew physics may be different here, but he had spent too much energy on his argument to back down.
        Twilight just gave him an evil stare. At least he’s no longer saying that Celestia doesn’t actually exist anymore. Although whether that’s due to him believing it not is still up for debate. ‘Using a false deity to explain the world was a standard practice in pre-modern societies’ because all species will think the same way. Twilight was going to end this. “Just like every person knows that magic doesn’t exist?” She asked as she slammed his book closed using her telekinesis. 
        “We still don’t know if that’s really magic or just an as yet unknown science using EM fields.” Anthony replied and ate another bite of his lunch, unable to rebuke Twilight’s last point. They’d finally managed to get confirmation that the local food wouldn’t kill them and he was ‘enjoying’ his B.L.T. (bread, lettuce and tomato) sandwich. They were allowed to eat meat, but it seemed to turn some ponies’ stomachs to watch it or smell it on a human’s breath during conversations. And there is no way I am desperate enough to touch that tofurky crap. 
        “Let’s just get back to Equestrian civilization then.” Twilight stated, just wanting to end the argument. “Celestia raises and lowers the sun while her sister Luna raises and lowers the moon at night.” Before Anthony could interrupt again she moved on to her next point, but not quick enough.
        “And Luna was this NightMare Moon?” He asked, hoping to get some sort of clarification as to how a leader could try to destroy their own citizens and be banished for 1000 years and then allowed to take power again.
        “Yes, technically. But we’ll get to that later. Right now is the differences in pony races and the hierarchy of Equestria.”

Evening of Day 72
        President Tow was sitting at her desk back in the Oval Office, going over the latest reports on current affairs. For the most part the world was the same as it had been the day before; with each country trying to amass as much power as it could. The Middle East was still at war with itself; the treaties between Russia and China were breaking down; it was business as usual. The one exception was the United States newest neighbor; Equestria.
        The reports President Tow had been getting from her people in the field were quite interesting. The two field operatives had been learning the language off of Anthony’s reports and were questioning different ponies on their own; they were trying to get extra information sources or internal agents, but so far they were having no success. The reports sent had stated that most of the ponies at the facility were either intensely loyal to Celestia or were royal guards; they suspected that they may be able to get more sources if they were able to get into the main pony population centers. They also went over speculated capabilities of the different species based upon movement, but that also would have to wait for major progress.
        The Linguist’s reports were more informative at the moment. According to him, most of the language had at least been written down and both sides could converse with each other fluently, except for specialized words and technical jargon. The basic structure seemed to be either a monarchy or an oligarchy, depending on if Celestia was really as old as the Equestrians kept saying; Anthony had sent assurances that she had to exist in some form. 
        Everything President Tow had read so far indicated that Equestrians were peaceful, but they were cautious. I can’t really blame them, she thought, we would probably be just as cautious if giant spacefaring tigers came to visit Earth with advanced technology. She also knew that she couldn’t keep this a secret forever and needed to start playing politics with the new neighbors. And they had no advanced technology, which gave the United States a great resource to start trade off with; an exchange for knowledge on magic of course.

Morning Day 85
        Lyra was waiting in the cafeteria for Tony, as she had started calling him, to arrive with his food for the morning. They had started going over modern culture and events; it would typically go with an exchange of questions where they would answer how it was on either side. Lyra never hated the human;, she just hated how they interrupted her research plans. But now, I think I’ll get another degree. Their study of Anthropology seems rather intriguing. Lyra had started thoroughly enjoying human culture and its plethora of differences. It seemed like every settlement, or country as they called them, had its own culture. 
        Lyra saw Tony approach and asked, “So, what did you want to know today?” 
        Anthony sat down and thought for a moment, placing his tray of food and his notebook next to each other on the table. “Hmm, yes. On exercise, do you have martial arts?” Lyra had learned that humans read in the same direction as ponies shortly after they had arrived, but she’d never been able to get ahold of the ‘manga’ she had seen on that first day.
        Lyra thought for a minute, trying to place that word. “We call it self-defense or say it by name; we don’t consider it an art, more of a necessity. And all our guards are trained in it along with anypony that wants to learn it; I have even trained in some of it for field work. The most common would translate as ‘karate’ but it isn’t the same as the human version.” Lyra understood the art behind it, but ponies didn’t seek fighting as much as humans did.
        “Do you have a version of stretching for exercise then?” When Lyra didn’t understand, he drew a few stick figures of some of the versions he knew of.
        Lyra watched as Anthony drew the crude figures, picturing what a human would look like doing them. When the picture formed in her head she started laughing, humans really were a unique bunch. Or maybe that’s a byproduct of advancement; more free time. She conceded. “No, but I heard stories of when a pegasi named Blossomforth had done something similar while preparing for the gathering of water for the next season.” Lyra started to get her laughing under control. “But that was by complete accident,” snicker, “and it took some doing to get her out of it.” Lyra couldn’t see any practicality in such a practice. “And what do you call this activity?” She inquired.
        “They call it yoga.” Anthony replied. The laughter really wasn’t helping his thought processes. “Do you have any questions today?”
        “On our trip to your world, why are we not allowed any guards?” Lyra asked bluntly, getting straight to the point. She didn’t have a say in the matter as Celestia had already approved of her as a diplomatic envoy for Equestria, but she had her own curiosity.
        Anthony started coughing at the unexpected question, it didn’t help that he was taking a sip of water at that moment. “The president has given her personal promise that the Equestrian envoy will be safely escorted and will be given all due respect.” Anthony had been given a full accounting of what this was to include and how important this meeting would be. “And no. I don’t know what the process will be.” Though he had no way of knowing that magic had its own limits, some things Celestia felt should remain hidden for now.
        Lyra switched to a different topic, knowing she could get nothing useful out of that line of questioning. “The creatures on your planet called locusts sound a lot like parapsrites. What do you know about locusts?”

Afternoon of Day 87
        Twilight was talking with Celestia on the coming envoy to Earth. “I want you to be the ambassador on this trip, my faithful student.” Celestia was lying on the purple pillow in her room, while Twilight Sparkle was on her own lavender pillow a few feet away. 
        “Why me, Princess?” The lavender mare asked.
        “Because Twilight, we are only sending two ponies, and both need to speak their language. That means you and Lyra. Second, would you want Lyra’s curiosity or impulsiveness, or biting tongue to get in the way of peace?” Celestia calmly asked, more curt than usual.
        “Well, no.” Twilight conceded. She heard just what could happen when Lyra was not in control or unmonitored. “You say temporary though.”
        Celestia smiled at her ever observant student. “Yes, I have another choice for an ambassador. But there are still a few variables in play that need to be understood first. I hope all of this hasn’t interrupted your studies on the magic of friendship.”
        Twilight noticed the change of topics, and ignored it. If the Princess wanted her to know something then Twilight would either be told or given enough to figure it out on her own. “Well, just recently I learned that spending too much time with somepony is just as bad as ignoring them.”

Midday of Day 92
        Avery was sitting on his bed, enjoying what was in essence his first day off here. He and Victor would be staying in Equestria while Anthony and the Equestrian delegates went to Earth. They had been informed of it beforehand, it was meant to make Equestria feel safe in letting two dignitaries travel to Earth without protection. Avery wasn’t even afraid that anything might happen to him because the United States would gain nothing and so far every pony he had met was either nice or defensive to him. 
        Avery stood up and walked over to Victor who was still asleep on his bed. Avery kicked the frame. “It’s time to get your ass out of bed.” Even when ‘off duty’ Avery still preferred to get something done.
        Victor just pulled his covers up further. “You remember what they said in basic, right. ‘Get sleep where you can’ and this is where I can.”
        Avery just grinned at his partner and walked back to his own bed, pulling out a book from the table next to his bed and sitting down to read more about Equestrian military history and to brush up on his language skills. The one thing he did wish he could see though was Lyra talking to President Tow; he still remembered being chewed out by the mint-green pony for asking about who was actually in charge of the facility. His ears were still burning from that, but he got his answer; Celestia.

        Lyra was filling up her saddlebags with some last minute items to take with her: some notepads, a quill, ink, and a cookbook. She figured her bags would be checked so she took nothing magical with her, nothing that could even be considered contraband. She then exited her room and headed to the meet up with Tony and Twilight in the void room. 
        Lyra didn’t want to have Twilight going on this trip, but she understood the necessity of it. As the personal student of the leader of Equestria, she had a certain political clout that would come in very handy, and she had studied more of human history than Lyra could get through yet. What she did know was mostly that humans were always at war and were great at creating new things. 
        As Lyra entered the void room, she heard Twilight call out to her. “You have to leave the saddlebag here, Lyra.”
        Lyra looked at her lavender counterpart; sure she had to be joking. But no, Twilight didn’t have a bag either; the saddlebag with Twilight’s cutie mark as a clasp was sitting in the corner and filled to the brim. As Lyra walked over, and sat her own bag down next to Twilight’s she asked, “Why? That makes no sense whatsoever.”
        Twilight just shrugged, “Anthony won’t tell me why.” 
        Lyra looked over at the human. He was wearing just a button down shirt and some sort of pants, Lyra still couldn’t identify clothing like Rarity could. He was actually barefoot, which Anthony never did in public. She walked over to the other two that she would be traveling with and looked up at the human. “What the hay is going on?” she asked.
        Anthony looked at her, “even if I told you I don’t think it would sink in.” He wasn’t trying to talk down to her or anything, but decontamination procedures were something he didn’t know how to explain to a pony.

> The Visit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Twilight stared at the void as she prepared to step through it. Anthony had already stepped through to show them that it was safe, and now all that was left was for herself and Lyra to step through. She looked to the right to see a nervous Lyra looking right back at her. Twilight inhaled and let it out slowly, one small step for ponies, she thought as she walked up to the void and submerged her right hoof into its smooth white surface, breaking its tension and sending out ripples.
        The lavender mare had to struggle to keep from yanking her leg back out when the cold and shock entered her body where it intersected with the void. The humans made it through here and so can I. She stated to herself; slowly trotting forward and through the circular object that had so confused her; passing from the Equestrian side to the Earth side. She started to wonder what would have happened if Mystic hadn’t pulled her back from the void all those months ago. 
        Twilight had the distinct urge to shake out her coat after exiting the void; wanting to shake out the cold and the shock. Guess we can’t call it a void anymore, she thought. As Twilight looked about the room she heard the telltale clopping of another pony entering the small enclosed room they were in. The room seemed to be about ten feet across in either direction and twelve feet high. It was made of some sort of shiny moving fabric that the humans called a type of ‘plastic’. There were pipes running along the top of the room that just exited out the top of it. The far end of the room had a zipper down it that Twilight assumed was for exiting. Why is there no door? She pondered as the sound of Lyra’s hooves moving about the room was the only noise to be heard. 
        Twilight saw a basket in the corner with a white sleeve sticking out of it. Perfect opportunity to see how magic works here, she thought as her horn was enveloped in a purple glow. The sleeve was slowly lifted by the purple aura surrounding it; far enough for her to notice that it was a familiar looking long sleeved shirt. The drain on her magic was still three times more than it would normally take on this size object. So magic does still work here, she concluded as she felt her energy refilling at a much slower rate. 
        Then it hit her, where did those clothes come from, they looked familiar. Twilight scanned the room and her vision landed on Lyra, who was staring at something. Their guide, Anthony, was naked like a pony. Twilight had seen some pictures, but she had never seen a naked human, she hadn’t even been able to see their arms or legs unadorned in clothing. He had a lot less hair than she expected. Anthony had hair on his arms and legs and torso, his hands were covering the front of his body between his legs though. Why is he naked? It must be some sort of taboo to be naked or he wouldn’t be covering himself, her thoughts mirroring that of Lyra’s. 
        Anthony looked over at the two ponies and gave what Twilight had learned of as a nervous smile. As a disembodied voice echoed around the room, “Don’t be afraid, this is a normal safety precaution to prevent alien bacteria from taking hold. Remember, it’s just like smelly rain.” The voice ended with a click.
        Before Twilight could question what was going on, she heard the hiss of water through a tube and felt something cold hit her withers. Then she noticed the smell and started to gag as it soaked into her fur. She tried to charge a teleportation spell to get her out of it, but she couldn’t focus as her eyes started to tear-up and her breathing didn’t come as easy. Just as she was asking herself if this was an elaborate trap; the fluid stopped hitting her. A few seconds later, another stream of fluid hit her. She went to hold her breath, but the she realized it was just water, rinsing whatever that other fluid had been off of her coat and making it easier to breath. As the second stream of water slowly stopped, the zipper at the far end of the room slowly moved downward.         Twilight resisted the urge to run forward; instead she chose to regally trot and was met by a human, in another suit very much like the one Avery had originally been in, that handed her a towel. She grabbed the offered towel in her magic and started to dry her coat. She heard Lyra step up next to her and started to dry herself off with a similar towel. “I never want to do that again,” Lyra muttered to her in Equestrian; taking a deep breath of fresh air. “What could drive them to use such horrid things on themselves?”
        Twilight had no answer for her colleague; it confused her just as much. Twilight turned around to find her guide just as he stepped out of the tent. He had put on undergarments and was holding what looked like another suit. “Hope you two are ready for a small trip.” The translator stated as he started trying to dress while standing up; having to use the tent to prop himself up quite a few times. 
        “We’re waiting on you,” Lyra quipped to the human. “You know, if you were to just go like that we could leave now.” Lyra was grinning, egging the human on.
        Anthony didn’t seem to be playing along. “There is no way I am going to see the President dressed like this.” He said. The only thing he had left was to button up his jacket.
        Twilight looked over at Lyra, who was moving from hoof to hoof with pent up energy. Lyra had been getting more excited the last few weeks at the thought of seeing Earth. She could stay calm if she had something to do, but all she was currently doing was waiting for a human to dress himself. 
        Anthony was apparently oblivious as he finished making sure everything looked proper. A man that looked like the human version of Horse Power came over to their little group. “If you will follow me please. I will escort you to your waiting vehicle.” And the large human walked away. 
        As the hulking man led them past the computer workstations, Lyra kept looking around trying to see everything at once. Neither pony was paying attention as they passed through the door until they felt the salt flat crunching under their hooves. 
        Anthony stopped when he could no longer hear the sound of hooffalls behind him. He looked back to see Twilight staring at the ground, or more specifically the salt on the ground. 
        Twilight could smell the salt in the dry desert air, the sweetness of it. The smell of pure salt was mildly intoxicating. 
        “Twilight, you ok?” Twilight felt a nudge on her shoulder; the grip shook her slightly, breaking her out of the trance.
        Twilight blinked and looked up at the human a little sheepishly. “Yeah, I just wasn’t expecting to see this much salt.” She noticed that Anthony looked confused and decided to elaborate, using Equestrian so as not to be overheard by the other of his species. “Salt works like alcohol does in your species. We need little amounts to live, just like other organisms; but pure salt and in large quantities can be quite alluring for ponies.” 
        Anthony looked at her sympathetically. “Just don’t look down then. Once you get to the car you won’t have to see it again until you go back.” Twilight was thankful she had looked up the regions of Earth and knew that most of it wasn’t like this. “By the way, where is Lyra?” Twilight looked to where she had last noticed Lyra at; the mare was gone.
        Twilight began to twist her head around to find the xenobiologist. She spotted the giant human standing by a large black vehicle she recognized as a car. It was all black, from the tires to the windows. What’s the point of having windows if you can’t see through them? She questioned and trotted towards the car. 
As Twilight got closer a light green tail became visible from behind the car, it then quickly disappeared. “What is that pony doing now?” Twilight muttered to herself. They had an appointment with the president to keep, and from what she had seen, it was going to take a while to get to their capital. It’s over a 2000 mile trip and we need to be there tomorrow; that’s not a lot of time. Twilight thought, she knew how fast cars could travel, but that would mean being in an enclosed carriage for that amount of time.
The car was incredibly well polished; Twilight could see herself in the black finish. She saw a shape approaching her in the polish and turned to see Lyra grinning from ear to ear. “You know we do have someplace to be.” Twilight stated indignantly. Twilight Sparkle was shocked when your counterpart started laughing.
“We have a full day, that’s plenty of time here. We’ll probably be taking a plane and be there by the end of the day; if not this thing is plenty big for you to sleep in.” Lyra pointed to the car, excited to be seeing human technology up close, the thing they had instead of magic.
Anthony walked up to the car and started talking to the human just standing there. “Hello Agent Reed, nice to see you again. What’s the plan anyway? No one seems to tell me anything.” He smiled at the Secret Service Agent.
“We have a plane waiting on the tarmac just a few miles away.” Agent Reed opened one of the rear doors of the vehicle. “If you would like to get in we can head there now.”
Lyra quickly jumped into the car and disappeared, followed shortly by Anthony. Twilight followed behind them. The interior was of decent sizing with two rows of seats facing eachother. She heard the door close behind her and decided to take a seat to her left, next to Lyra. As Twilight climbed up onto the seat she started to feel what the material was and started to feel sick. “Is this leather?” She asked, horrified at the implications.
A voice came from a window at her back that was just as black as the others. “No ma’am, it’s not. It is a faux leather material designed to look like it. The President has ordered that no leather is to be used in your presence. Faux leather is still being used because it denotes class and rank. We all hope this is acceptable with you. If you can tell us what type of materials are preferred we can have it ready for your return trip.” 
Twilight swallowed, happy at the concession, but still not happy at what it looked like, nor the fact that it was somewhat comfortable. She would have to find some other material later. She heard some sort of growling sound and the car started to move. To take her mind off of the faux leather she decided to ask the local expert a question. “What exactly is an airplane?” She knew that they existed but not much else. It seemed that aircraft were used for war and that kind of thing she just she forwarded to Celestia’s military generals. 
Before Anthony can open his mouth, Lyra was already stating her answer. “Because humans can’t fly like a pegasi, they needed a way to travel the world faster.” Lyra just grinned as she spoke; enjoying the information and that Twilight didn’t know it. “They travel higher and faster than the standard pegasus, some even faster than your friend Rainbow Dash.” It was plain in her voice that Lyra really wanted to see the plane up close.
Twilight was still confused. “But how do they work?”
Anthony shrugged his shoulders; he just used them for transportation.
Lyra thought for a moment trying to remember what she had read on them. “They have giant engines that suck in air and shoot it out the back.”
Which really explains nothing, Twilight groaned. 
The car pulled to a stop after only a few minutes and Agent Reed opened the door for them. Twilight exited onto a rough black surface; she thought it was asphalt, and looked around her. The purple pony was perplexed; not realizing how fast they had moved, she couldn’t even see the building they had exited before. Then looking forward, she spotted the plane. It was a long tube on three little stick that attached to wheels, with horizontal angular fins on the side and one on the back pointed vertically. Looking for the engines; she spotted two on the tail, and they weren’t necessarily large, but a pony could comfortably stand inside one. The vehicle itself seemed rather small compared to some of the pictures in the books that were brought to Equestria; the plane was less than 60 feet long and 20 tall, she couldn’t tell from this angle what the possible wingspan could be. The color was a basic shiny white that humans seemed to like with blue lines down the side of the craft.
There was a small step ladder leading into the body of the craft that looked like it would just fold upward and be part of the basic cylinder shape. Anthony was walking towards it with a big grin on his face, happy about something. Twilight followed a practically bouncing Lyra up the steps and into the airplane. 
The interior had a row of plush looking seats; one row along each side of the tube separated by an aisle, for a total of eight chairs. The ones in the middle were situated towards each other and had a polished wooden table on either side off the walkway. The floor was a beige carpet, the seats a white material that looked nothing like the faux leather, and the walls were all white with polished wooden accents. 
Anthony was already sitting in one of the seats on the right side of the aisle, and Lyra had taken one on the left. Twilight decided to sit across from Lyra; Anthony was reclining in his chair and looked like he wanted to sleep. To her left she noticed a small black square and not knowing what it was for decided to leave it alone. 
A clear human voice sounded over the speakers, “This is your caption speaking, we are about to takeoff. For the ponies in the cabin, please enjoy. There are several movies on file that can be watched on the monitors at each table and there will be a hostess to answer or help you in any way possible.” The voice cut off and Twilight noticed a human female in the seat behind Lyra.
There was a hum and a slight vibration running through the cabin. Then the craft started to move forward and turned to the left slightly. As the plane traveled; it slowly picked up speed. The feeling of going fast and not feeling any wind was disconcerting. Then things got worse as the nose lifted up and the plane gained altitude. Twilight looked out the window and saw the ground slowly fade away. Then she started to freak out; this was really weird and there was no way this craft should be staying airborne without the aid of magic. 

Anthony was leaning back in his seat, arms behind his head and eyes closed. A Jetstream. I could get used to escorting ponies around if it means riding in private jets. He was happy; this was the farthest thing from coach seats on a commercial airline. The plane had reached cruising altitude; Lyra and Twilight were busy talking about the television screen and about what movie to put on, but neither could figure out how it worked.
The flight attendant walked up to the arguing ponies; she was wearing a white blouse with a black skirt. She asked, “Need help?” in a halfway decent Equestrian, but the ponies just looked at her.
Anthony just smirked. “They do speak pretty good English just try that.” He suggested while keeping his eyes closed.
The flight attendant took the hint and asked, “Would you two like some help with the monitor?”
Twilight looked over at flight attendant. “No, we figured it out; we were just discussing what kind of movie to watch. Thank you though.” She then turned back to her friend and tried to finish the movie talk but was interrupted by a question from Lyra.
“I’m surprised that a new mother is helping us out, shouldn’t she be taking care of her young?” Lyra asked. 
Anthony had to keep from coughing at the unexpected question, happy they were talking in Equestrian. That one always had the interesting questions.
“Do you mean the enlarged mammary glands?” Twilight asked, not having noticed it before.
“Yes. It seems a common feature on the female, but that should only happen when they birth young, that’s how all mammals we know of work, even the ones in their books.” Lyra sounded confused, and Anthony was trying to keep from laughing, wondering just how far Lyra would go. 
        That was when Lyra did the unexpected and jumped up on her seat to look over the back of it at the flight attendant. “Excuse me. How old is your baby?”
        The flight attendant just looked at her, confused. “I don’t have one, and I’m not pregnant.”
        “Then why do you have enlarged breasts?” Lyra asked.
        SMACK!!!
        Anthony jumped up to stop whatever was about to start. Crap, I’m supposed to avert international incidents. When he looked at the scene, it was more than a little surprising. The flight attendant looked shocked and Lyra was rubbing the back of her head with a hoof. But it wasn’t the flight attendant that hit her, Twilight was standing on the table separating, hoof upraised.
        “Why’d you hit me?” Lyra asked, startled at the sudden pain in her head.
        “That question. That was incredibly rude; you could see it on her face.” Twilight stated curtly. 
        “But I was curious.” Lyra whimpered. Her eyes were starting to water.
        Twilight huffed. “And that is why you aren’t being allowed to talk to the president with me.”
        “What?!” Shouted Lyra, shocked that she was just hearing about it know. 

        Lyra was sitting out in the waiting room with Anthony while Twilight Sparkle spoke with the President of the United States. The waiting room was rather large with several high backed sitting chairs that were wooden with red fabric padding. The room had a fireplace on the far wall and a dark wooden table in the middle of the room. There were still other chairs spread about the room.
The plane had arrived in only a few hours the day before, and they were picked up by another black car that took them to a very nice room in a local hotel. Lyra and Twilight had shared a room that was adjoined with Anthony’s room. The bed was rather big and plush, similar to that of Celestia’s. They had gone in through the back of the building and told it was a discrete hotel; they wouldn’t have to be worried about being seen. Lyra had loved the view though, it was like staying in Canterlot castle and looking down on the city below, only this one was filled with humans. 
        Lyra was surprised that on the way in that they spotted no other humans than the Secret Service Agents that were spread about the building. They had even been driven in a car with tinted windows, but these ones could be seen out of and the view of the White House had impressed Lyra. They build such interesting buildings. But there are so many of them; even the books couldn’t truly represent their numbers. So much for thinking they were nervous about numbers of ponies. 
        Lyra was starting to get antsy though; Twilight had been gone for almost an hour. 

        Twilight was being led by another suited human from the room where Anthony and Lyra had been requested to stay. She was lead through a few rooms and corridors then into another room with a desk and a young human female sitting at it. The woman at the desk nodded at them as they walked past her and her escort opened the door for her. 
        The room was somewhat circular with three floor-to-ceiling windows on the opposite wall with two flags between them. There were built in bookcases and dressers along the walls. The carpet had a pattern on it with the center being the picture of an eagle holding arrows and a branch. There was a coffee table with flowers on top of it. The coffee table was surrounded by two white couches, two high backed blue sitting chairs with an end table between each chair and each couch, and an old working desk by the windows.
        A red-haired woman in a black and red suit with red accents got up from the desk and walked over to greet Twilight. The woman extended a hand to Twilight and they shook hands. “Welcome to Earth Twilight Sparkle. I am President Margarette Tow and it is a pleasure to meet you. Would you like to sit?” The woman asked; pointing towards one of the couches. 
        Twilight nodded. “It would be my pleasure.” Twilight walked over to the offered couch; put her forelegs onto the cushion and lifted herself onto it. She turned around and sat to see the President on the other couch facing her. “I am here to represent Princess Celestia of Equestria and to extend an invitation to open up diplomatic relations with the citizens of Earth.”
        President Tow raised an eyebrow, clearly impressed. “I see Anthony wasn’t lying when he talked about your abilities in English.” Which in turn caused Twilight’s cheeks to redden imperceptibly. “But I’m afraid I don’t represent Earth as a whole, but I would be more than happy to extend diplomatic relations between the United States and Equestria.”
        Twilight knew about the division of their planet, but she needed to see how they would react. “Then I extend to you an invitation to discuss formal matters with Celestia herself in the Royal Palace at Canterlot, if you find that acceptable.”
        Chess Indeed, Tow thought, but this wasn’t unexpected. “It would be my pleasure. I am sure you understand that I will need a translator and some guards to travel with me.”
        “You’re safety has been guaranteed by Celestia herself.” Twilight replied diplomatically. “And seeing as you are the head of state; it would be an insult not to allow you an ‘honor guard’ to suit your position.” The unspoken agreement passed between them. 
        “That is acceptable.” President Tow agreed. “What transportation will there be to the Royal Castle?” she inquired.
        “You will be met by Royal Guards upon departing the portal,” Twilight stated, needing a better name than the ominous ‘void’. “They will then fly you and your retinue to the Royal Castle. All Celestia asks is that Mr. Marcus be allowed to join in some respect, she felt saddened at never having the chance to meet him.”
        “I will be bringing him as my official translator. Mr. Anwar and Mr. Sizemore will be used as ‘Honor Guard’ while there.” The president stated, getting ready for the surprise. “If it is alright with you; I would like to have one of my Agents show you around the city, you won’t be able to leave the car, but there are still plenty of sights and history to see. And, if it is acceptable you can stay here another night and I will travel back with you to Equestria.”
        “Thank you, Madam President.” Twilight bowed her head slightly. “It would be a privilege.” 

> Chess
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        President Margarette Tow was getting ready to leave for Equestria. Going immediately seemed brash to some, but Senator Brent was getting close and she needed to set up peaceful relations before he found out what was really going on. Brent was a rival of hers, a rather hardliner that kept trying to impede her no matter the cost; all for the sake of politics. Politics, coming from Greek, poly meaning many and tics, meaning bloodsucking creatures. She ruminated over one of her favorite quotes on politics, and thinking just how apt it really was. 
        She was in the Director’s office, in the chair behind his desk; making sure things were set up for her trip. “Agent Reed, call Operations and tell them to setup project ‘Icarus’, they’ll know what to do. Next get someone to send a message to Avery and Victor, tell them that I am coming and to be ready, they get to be an ‘Honor Guard’” She hated having to use ‘Icarus’ but it looked like they were likely to ‘lose’ part of the base, and she had to plan for every contingency. As for Avery and Victor, they really were the best choice of guards, and the only ones that could work as protection. They both knew the language better than any other potential guards would, they also had experience with ponies; they knew more about their body language and what actions would be threats. Besides, they were very good at looking like they weren’t paying attention; even when they were. It worked better and kept the edginess out of already tense situations. Besides, they were already read into ‘Equis’ as it came to be known after receiving of the M.A.L.P.’s telemetry. 
        President Tow wasn’t upset at having to bring Mr. Marcus along, he was currently the best at the Equestrian language, much better than Jarry and he understood their culture, not to mention the respect he had garnered. Yes, he’d make a great advisor to whoever gets picked as the Ambassador since he has no skill in politics whatsoever. She mused. 
        I can’t keep Brent out of this forever, but if I can get ahold of some of those magic gems, I can at least cut him off at the knees and make him a paper tiger. She needed a plan against him; this was where the long game came in. He was trying to get people against her party so that he had a better shot at the Presidency. And that would be the end to any kind of peace in international politics. She remembered how he was always for supplying weapons to whatever small rebellion would hurt his enemies; not caring that they would be his own enemies later. It didn’t matter; he would just find a new rebellion to stir up. He’d once told her, ‘If the whole world is fighting themselves, we get free reign.’ She was going to use an executive agreement instead of a treaty to keep the senate from trying to stop it, or having the American public find out before all her ducks were in a row, afraid that it could cause chaos.
        She was also going to offer to help build their embassy. She had two reasons for this. The first was to build goodwill, they couldn’t get enough material in from their side in order to get it built. The second was purely tactical; the Director of the CIA had planned on placing bugs into the concrete. It was a tactic they Russians had pulled during the Cold War on an American Embassy in Moscow. It was very effective and could still be. It’s not that out of the ordinary, every country spies on their allies. It was effective, especially since no two countries motives were always in line with each other or may be contradictory. Or they can have evidence of something and not hand it over due to politics. She sighed. Only a three and a half more years until I can retire. Margarette Tow sighed and got up from the chair, she walked out the door of the Director’s office, ready to see this new world. 

        Celestia was sitting with her sister Luna in the Royal Dining Hall, waiting for their guests to arrive. The Royal Dining Hall was big enough to host a dinner party for over 50 dignitaries. The standard long redwood table had been switched out for a more manageable one that would only seat about 20. Celestia and her sister were both seated at one end, facing towards the gilded doors that their guests would enter through. The room was an ornate affair designed to impress, with marble columns against the walls separated by red curtains with a white and gray alternating marble tile pattern.
        Luna’s appearance was a counterbalance to her sister’s pearly appearance. Whereas Celestia had a white coat with golden horseshoes; Luna’s coat was a deep navy blue with silver horseshoes. Luna’s cutie mark was mottled black with a white crescent moon which was complimented by her black necklace that mirrored her cutie mark and simple black tiara. She was an alicorn just like her sister, with a mane of medium blue that grew translucent at the ends and blew in an ethereal wind. There were specks of pure magic in her mane that cause it to look like stars in the night sky. Sitting next to each other, Celestia’s extra head of height was readily apparent.
        Celestia had received a letter from her student earlier that day stating that she would be bringing the foreign diplomat today. It was earlier than expected but was still within the expected outcomes. They should be arriving within five minutes, so they were waiting in the Hall to meet them. They wouldn’t be eating today; Celestia just wanted to have the meetings in a room where both sides could be seen as equals.  
        “’Tia, Are thou sure this is wise?” Luna asked her sister. “They are a violent species.”
        “What other choice do we have?” Celestia replied. “Are we to ignore them like we originally did with Discord or the Griffin Kingdoms?”
        Luna knew all too well what those choices had cost in the past. The first led to their ponies being tortured and manipulated. The second had led to a war due to a misunderstanding that was only averted at the last minute, they still weren’t sure how. 
        Luna lowered her head, those mistakes were both of their faults, but it reminded her all too well of her own transgressions as NightMare Moon; when Celestia risked everything to save her. “That tis a valid point, dear sister.” The Princess of the Night raised her head back up to look into her sisters eyes. “They are still violent. If they can’t get along with themselves. How could they expect to get along with a species they view as prey?”
        “Lulu, please. There is more than that. We get along with several other kingdoms that used to do the same. And they aren’t all as evil as you may think.” Celestia and Luna had both been looking into human history, and for every great evil, they had a great hero. One’s that would risk everything to protect those they cared about. In that respect, they weren’t that different from ponies. That; however; did not mean she wasn’t taking precautions. But her sister could only see the similarities they had to a certain mare of darkness.
        A knock on the doors signaled the arrival of her guests, and the beginning of a new chapter in Equestrian history. Each side of the arched door was surrounded by a different aura of magic, one pink and the other green. As the doors opened, Celestia noticed two columns of beings. To her left was that of Twilight Sparkle, Lyra, and Rarity who had been asked to attend for a special purpose. To her right was the human delegation, being led by a human female dressed in what had to be the finest of materials and flanked by her two ‘Honor Guards’ who Celestia figured had to be armed, following them was a human male that had to be the translator. 
        Celestia motioned towards the table and spoke in Equestrian, “Please take a seat.” Twilight and her friends sat on the left side of the table on raised platforms so they could see over the table. The President sat at the head of that end of the table in a seat specifically designed for humans, still flanked by her guards, with the translator to her left side. “Mr. Marcus, would you please sit across from Twilight, I would feel bad if you had to stand the whole time.” Celestia smiled as she spoke, using her millennia’s of experience to be as polite and dignified as possible.
        After Anthony told the President what he had been asked, she nodded her head and he moved down the table.
        “Welcome to Equestria, Madam President.” Celestia spoke in perfect, unaccented English. 
        President Tow had a split second of shock cross her features, barely perceptible. “It is my pleasure. I hope these talks go well.”
        “As do we.” Responded Luna, her voice more accented than that of her sister’s. 
        “And the first matter to be discussed should be the selection of ambassadors.” Celestia stated. “If it is acceptable to you, we should like Rarity here to represent Equestria in our dealings in your country.” As she pointed to the white coated pony that looked shocked. Celestia hadn’t told her plans to anypony, and was about to see if it would pay off.
        “That is acceptable. If I may ask though, what are her qualifications?” President Tow had looked into the Equestrian system and had a good idea as to why that pony was picked, but no clue who other candidates might have been.
        “Rarity is a hero to all of Equestria.” Celestia intoned, making sure to present Rarity’s best. “She is a business pony of the highest class and has experience dealing with the upper echelons of society. Finally, as the Element of Generosity, she will be fair in her dealings with both sides.” Making sure to leave out her other reason. And it will keep Prince Blueblood far away from the portal since they can’t stand each other. “Twilight and Lyra will also work as her advisors, being that they are the best experts we have.”
        “The United States has no issues with her qualifications.” President Tow conceded. “She is an admirable choice. Now we have three candidates for the Ambassador to Equestria. It is only fair that since you asked our opinion that we listen too yours.” She stated very amiably.
        That was the opening Celestia was waiting for.
“Tis not necessary.” Luna replied before her sister could state it. “We have a candidate in mind. Mr. Marcus.”
The President of the United States was livid. I played right into that. “I will take your suggestion under advisement, if you will-“ She was interrupted by the same royal blue alicorn.
“It has been highly suggested by both Lyra and Twilight that he be allowed to represent the United States in your dealings here.” Luna intoned, adding an air of condescension to her voice. “We agree, as does my sister. This is non-negotiable.”
“You can’t dictate our policy. Just because you can get whatever you want here doesn’t mean we will just roll over for you.” If The President was livid before, now she was fuming, doing her best not to let it show.
Celestia cleared her throat. “My sister may have been a bit blunt, but she is correct. He has shown respect to our customs,” after a bit of prodding. Celestia had read her student’s reports after all. “Thus, he is the only one we will accept. If this does not work for you, there are plenty of other countries on your planet that we can set up negotiations with.” She didn’t have to change the tone of her voice for the threat to be understood by all at the table.
        “Agreed, on the condition that we are paid in full for the land and facilities for your Embassy.” The red-haired leader began negotiating. “We are ready to give you the area around the Earth side of the portal and we shall share the actual facility for testing and transportation of personnel and materials.” She wasn’t done though. “That would include paying for the loss of our testing field since we wouldn’t run tests of a military nature that close to your Embassy. We will even help you to build your Embassy.”
        Celestia considered the terms for a few minutes; weighing the potential costs and gains of such a move, and what it could possibly cost. “Agreed. We will pay you in an assortment of magical gems that you can use to help your people.”
        Luna objected almost instantly. “Sister! Thou can’t be serious!” She cast a dark look at the humans. “They can’t be truste-“
        The Eternal Diarch of the Day stopped her sister with a gentle hoof on her back. “They will just be lighting, heating or similar stones to ease their burdens. They can’t be used as weapons, Dear Sister.” She then returned her attention back to the rest of the table. “Twilight, if you can take your friends and Anthony to get some food, we have other matters to discuss.”
        Twilight quickly nodded and stood, as she walked towards the door, the other three simply followed. Once the doors had shut once again; Celestia let her façade drop. “We will attend to our own Embassy, Madam President. That way it can suit our needs exactly.”
        The President failed to take the hint though and continued with her play. “Once you have the designs drawn up, we can bring in heavy machinery to help you build it faster. Surely you have seen what we are capable of building.” 
        “We have looked into human history.” Luna was done playing games; she was still acclimating to the change of politics that occurred during her 1000 year absence. “We don’t trust thee that far.” Celestia decided not to stop her sister; she was arguing the same points Celestia would have, if not more aggresively. “For all we know you would plant listening devices to spy on us.”
        “The United States has no records of us doing such things.” Margarette Tow rebutted. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to give them unaltered history texts. But if they are as old as they say it would have been seen through instantly and made matters worse.
        “And what of this Russia? Have they ever done it?” Luna accused, her adversaries silence confirmed her suspicions though. “We are older than any other living creature on your planet and you would attempt to deceive thee? We are here to protect our ponies at any cost, whereas humans are only out for themselves.” The Regent of the Night was ready to fight, she didn’t trust these petty little creatures and wouldn’t let them try anything; she would protect her ponies with her life.
        “We would rather not deal with Thee.” President Tow intoned, turning Luna’s speech patterns into an insult. “It would be better if we dealt with Celestia. Humans wouldn’t like dealing with a ‘benevolent’ ruler that tried to depose her sister and kill off all her subjects. Although that does sound like a very despotic human thing to do.”
        Celestia shot to her feet in an instant, splaying her wings wide, grim expression covering her face. “ENOUGH!” She yelled, using the Royal Canterlot Voice to drown out all other noise and bickering. She’d had enough of their bickering. “Luna will be staying here to deal with the daily running of Equestria and her cycles of night and day. If it is necessary, I will travel to Earth to see to things personally if I must.” She then turned her expression straight at Tow. “And I will NOT tolerate that kind of talk towards my sister. She made her mistakes and she paid for them. Are you saying you have never made one?”
        Celestia looked behind the President to see her two guards holding small plastic devices against their chests, holding it with both arms. She already knew of them as some variation of guns. “If that is all. I believe we both have other matters to attend to.” She stated as she turned around and walked out the door that was behind her. Showing her back to the President of the United States.

> Beginnings 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        President Margarette Tow was sitting back at her desk in the Oval Office; a small smile gracing her face. The negotiations hadn’t gone as well as it could have, but she had still gained more than was lost, a lot more. She had pushed a little hard on a few topics, like assisting with the construction of the Embassy; but that had shown her how intelligent the Royal Princesses were and how far they were willing to bend; necessary if this relationship was to last. The loss of placing the bugs was a minor loss, more of a backup plan if things went for the worst. But that’s what ‘Backdoor’ is for, President Tow consoled herself.
        The loss of Area 51 wasn’t even a setback. With the detonation of the Alcubierre drive seven months ago, that area was considered a poor spot for scientific research. The facility had been mostly deactivated due to every country knowing about the top secret research facility, which made it rather tricky to run clandestine tests. Besides, the United States would still maintain control of the Area 51 facility, just not most of the salt flat. Even after all these months of testing, almost nothing had been discovered about the anomaly other than the fact that it worked as a gateway.
        The gems received out of the loss of the salt flat more than made up any potential loss they could have meant. It gave the United States first and so far exclusive access to magical artifacts that could help humanity as a whole. Thank God they don’t trust us enough to give us potential weaponized ones. The President thought to herself. Access to the gems would be able to cut off any objections that Senator Brent might have to the deal, and the fact that they weren’t weapons meant he couldn’t use them for his own separate gains. Those will go straight to Research and Development in the new research facility up in Alaska. All because they thought they were forcing my pick of Ambassadors.
        The truth was that Anthony Marcus had been on her short list of candidates anyway, and as President it was purely her call. The fact that he wasn’t connected to politics in any way would help maintain the impartiality of his office. It also didn’t hurt that in order to attempt to manipulate him someone would have to go to Equestria to talk to him; and she could control, with some exceptions, who could get there. But he was currently their expert on ponies and they respected him; which would go a long way into helping relations. Besides, The president thought to herself, happy at the turn of events; his wife is a very useful asset.

        A small human figure climbed through the second story window, the Virginia woods could be seen outside the window. The figure was small and five foot six inches and she was wearing dot matrix forest camouflage with a small black bag across her back and a pistol holster along the small of her back. She didn’t wear a mask, either she would succeed and there would be no proof, or she wouldn’t and it didn’t matter. Her skin was light cream and jet black hair tied back in a bun. Her black boots made no sound as she traversed along the floor to the room’s only door. 
        The room was a small office; the type that could be seen in any building in the country, with just a small desk, a computer, and some filing cabinets. Aiko had bribed someone on the inside to leave the window open for her this whole week. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him but she didn’t trust him. She had used the woods to get close to the building and then scaled the wall to get in. 
        This building belonged to a group of radicals that were trying to run their own private army. The problem was that they didn’t care who they hit and one of their recent attacks in Algeria had killed several US citizens; which was when they were put on the CIA’s radar. Her job was to take out this facility; they already had all the Intel they had needed from this location, so she could have a field day. 
        Aiko opened the door and looked out into a plain white hallway with a curve to her left and a door to her right. Why do these building always look the same, white drywall or stucco, always. Some days this job gets repetitive. The CIA operative went to the left, keeping her profile small and a lookout for any potential risks. When she got to the corner, a quick peek showed that no one was there. There was a door farther along the wall she was leaning against and another turn farther ahead that lead to a stairwell. 
        The camouflaged agent moved to the door and opened it quickly to get the drop on anyone there. It was an empty storage facility; just like her map had stated, and just the room that she needed. The room was small and she covered its ten feet of space quickly. After getting to the far wall she ducked down and pulled a small box out of her bag. The small box was a homemade bomb and this particular wall was loadbearing; once it was gone, so would the whole building. The bomb was even custom made to replicate that of the IRA; another organization they had managed to piss off. That should keep them occupied for a while. She mussed to herself, and she set the timer for five and a half minutes. The bomb would go off after three minutes, that way they couldn’t properly evacuate the building or disarm the device. 
        Aiko moved over to the final turn before the stairwell, she had yet to find anybody here. Guess my informant wasn’t lying when he said they don’t like to work on the weekends. Hope he isn’t here when the bomb goes off. Oh well, if so I can just find a new one, not like these people will be a problem much longer. She mused, now all she had to do was get out and the easiest way to do that was through the front door.
        Aiko descended the stairs quietly and opened the door into what looked like some sort of training room with melee weapons spread along the walls. But, there was something else there, more appropriately, someone. She stepped out of the doorway and saw two men, one on either side of her and both about five feet away. They were both about six foot tall and were wearing karategi, traditional clothing used in karate. The one on the left was holding a katana in a downward angle with both hands to keep its length hidden. Why do people like going with a katana? Can’t they used something more creative like a kukri or a kalis? She inwardly moaned. The other was holding a bowie knife in a downward grip. 
        They both moved towards her. As the one with a katana moved towards her, he moved it up past his right shoulder to above his head. The other one meanwhile switched his grip to the normal heaven style to increase his range. Aiko grinned and stepped towards the guy with a katana. He helicoptered the sword above his head once; she recognized that style, kashima shinryu. Just like Aiko was expecting, he brought the sword in a downward diagonal strike across his right shoulder. But the sword never made it. She stepped into his swinging arc and used her left hand to grip his that were holding the sword and used her right palm to strike his jaw then quickly wrapped her arm around the back of his neck. 
        Aiko was now controlling her attacker’s momentum and still had another target coming up behind her. She shifted her weight, spinning her captive to her left; sword under her control. As the CIA operative spun; she noticed that her other attacker had just gotten within range and the sword angled directly at his eyes. He didn’t see the razor-sharp blade until it was too late to move out of its way. But at the last moment, Aiko twisted her captive’s hands, causing the blunt edge to hit and knocking him out cold. 
        With the last of her momentum; Aiko flung her captive to the ground and pulled the pistol out of its holster. The man landed on his back with a pistol pointed straight at his face. Anyone that knew guns would be able to tell it was a FiveseveN, a pistol that could penetrate police body armor, let alone an unprotected human’s head. “Lose the sword or lose your head.” She threatened, she preferred not to have to kill anyone face to face; it was a sign of prestige to her. 
        The man let go of his sword and she kicked it away. “Now if you alert anyone, I will come back.” All the guy did was nod and lied down. 
        Aiko took this opportunity to make sure he wouldn’t be informing anyone of her appearance and kicked him in the small of his back; right in the kidneys. Almost instantly her victim curled up into the fetal position. 
        Aiko exited the room which led out into another corridor, but this one had a glass doorway at one end. This time she ran, forgoing silence for speed. It was 50 feet to the exit and she only had about two minutes left. She felt a sharp pain in her right shoulder followed a moment later by the report of a gunshot. Aiko rolled so as to not lose her momentum and heard two more shots ring out. As she regained her footing and began running again the Field operative raised her right arm behind her to fire blindly, hoping to keep whoever shot her in cover. One of these days I need to get some armor, but it’s too restricting. Maybe when they get that reactive graphene armor working. She concluded, a little tired of being shot, even if it was just a part of the job. 
        As Aiko neared the door, she positioned her gun in front of her; ignoring the screaming of her shoulder, and fired six rounds into the door, ruining its integrity when combined with the two from her current attacker. She then fired a few more rounds behind herself and used her left shoulder to slam into glass and made her exit. She hit the ground with her left shoulder and turned it into another roll to get back on her feet, her right shoulder facing the shattered glass doorway. Aiko got back to her feet and headed straight for the woods. 
        Not knowing if she would be facing any more opposition; Aiko swapped out for a fresh magazine, knowing her current one only had four rounds left. Twenty rounds always go quick. She muttered darkly, but the extended magazine didn’t work well with the rubber baton rounds that she preferred. Or was it the fact that it’s bulkier? The extended magazine did make it harder to hide.
        Aiko had her gun ready as she made her way through the woods. Less than a minute left. About thirty feet in, she noticed a familiar ferret faced man stepping around from behind a pine tree. “Hello Francis.” She spat, hating her handler and his ‘perfect’ timing. “And what do I owe this pleasure?”
        Francis was slightly overweight with sandy white hair, pale skin and no neck. He said too cheerfully, “You have a new mission. You are to proceed to Area 51 immediately.”
        Aiko just stared at him as her mind processed that information. “I can’t, my husband returns today. If I’m not there before he gets back.” She let the threat linger in the air. He had been her cover for most of the past decade and allowed her to freely enter and exit the Japanese archipelago. While she had started out as an MP, she was quickly recruited by Military Intelligence and within five years by the CIS’s SAD program. But no one would look twice at the Japanese wife of a foreign translator.
        The grin on Francis’ face disturbed her, it said he knew something that he refused to say. “That’s been taken care of.”
        Aiko knew her handler, and he wouldn’t just give out information. “Fine.” She tried to keep from huffing. “What is the mission and what will my cover be?” She grated.
        Francis’ face turned a shade of white she hadn’t seen before. “I don’t know.” The confusion on his face was clear. “I don’t have the clearance. This comes directly from the Director and you are to use your standard cover ID.” He looked pallid.
        As the timer on Aiko’s watch hit zero, a speaker near the base began to sound. “Mission Accomplished.” It stated, as if nothing had happened. 
        Aiko then turned her attention back to the man in front of her. “That reminds me.” She stated, letting the anger seep into her voice. “How did those two men know where I would be exiting from?”
        “Oh. That?” Francis asked innocently. “I told them of course. Training just isn’t the same if you don’t push yourself.” He tried to contain the satisfaction he got by throwing monkey wrenches into other people’s plans.
        Aiko walked past him; headed back to the training station so she could get her shoulder looked at. “Well.” She intoned; making her next statement sound over sweet and polite. “You might want to tell that to your two people in there. One has a concussion and the other will be peeing blood for a week.”         

        Twilight was sitting in the middle of the Ponyville libraries floor with several books floating around her head, all surrounded by a purple aura of magic. She would read some of one and if she didn’t find what she wanted would toss the book onto the floor and go on to the next one. “No.” A blue bound book went flying. “Not here either.” An orange bound book joins its blue friend on the floor. “Maybe I should just start simple.” Twilight resigned; letting the rest of the books drop to the floor. She then proceeded to pick up a quill in her aura and started scribbling in a notepad at her feet. She spoke to herself while writing. “Stay out of the Everfree Forest!” 
        Twilight was working on her lesson plan for all incoming visitors from Earth. It had been decided that every human needed a basics on life in Equestria. She would include wildlife, basic language, standards of conduct, and so on. Anthony was working on a similar plan for all Equestrians entering Earth. This had been Rarity’s idea; she had jumped on the role of Ambassador with a vengeance, and she felt it would make things easier on both sides. These guides would be compulsory to both sides, and tests would be given that could deny one’s rights outside of Embassy property. 
        Another process that was being set up was that each entrant would get a thorough medical screening by professionals from both sides of the portal. The idea was that it would familiarize both sides with the health requirements of the other. In case of emergency it would also allow each side to provide emergency medical treatment for the other. Both sides were wanting as big of a safety margin as they could get. 

        Rarity was running through her boutique, making sure everything was ready. “Oooohhh!” She squealed; wanting the chance to leave already. “Just think of all the designs they must have, a species that always wears clothing. The fashions must be so unique!” Not knowing how much time she would have for her dressmaking, she would plan on a lot.
        “Sweetie dahling, have you seen my measuring tape?” Rarity called out to her little sister somewhere in the boutique. 
        “No.” A small squeaky voice replied. 
        Rarity let her sister’s grumpiness be what it was. Sweetie was upset that their parents wanted her to see the new world; as it was a great opportunity. This also meant she wouldn’t be able to see her two best friends, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, for quite a while. Rarity would make sure her little sister came back once in a while so she could still go crusading with her friends to figure out what their special talents were. 
        
Celestia was lying down in her bed, having already passed the ruling of Equestria over to her sister for the night with the setting of the sun. No matter what she did though, she couldn’t get the recent events off of her mind. 
        It didn’t help that both sides had already lost citizens in the creation of the portal that connected the two worlds. Or, that first contact with a species was always rough, she remembered first contact with griffons. Luna didn’t trust the humans, but Her sister always was pragmatic, more so after being saved by the Elements of Harmony. Celestia also realized that the humans were just trying to protect themselves like she and her sister were for their precious ponies. 
        As Celestia fell asleep that night, one thought kept floating through her head; I just hope that by working together, we can avoid a repeat of history.

> Side Story 1: Lyra
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

6 months before the arrival of the M.A.L.P. into Equestria
        “I assume you have some idea why you have been called here today” The Ruler of Equestria asked from her throne in Canterlot Castle.
        “Yes. It’s to see if there is any remnant of the changeling brainwashing left.” The green mare lowered her head, embarrassed. 
        Celestia smiled down at her subject and smiled like a mother would at her own child. “No. It has been concluded that when Shining Armor cast his shield, all changeling magic was deprived of an energy source and dissipated.” Her subject still didn’t want to look her in the eyes. She hadn’t like that she threatened somepony she used to be friends with and one that was a member of the Royal Family. “Lyra, you are not responsible for that.”
        Lyra looked up at Princess Celestia, a fire burning in her eyes. “I will always hold myself responsible for it. But, if that isn’t it, what did you called me for?”
        “We came under attack by a species we hadn’t even known of. I need you to study the changelings; find out what they can do and what kind of a threat they still pose to Equestria.” 
        “But… Why me? You couldn’t even stop them?” Lyra’s butt hit the ground, utter shock showing on her features. 
        Celestia remembered being defeated at the hooves of Chrysalis quite readily. She also remembered that she had hadto hold back. The last time she had to go all out on her magic was against NightMare Moon and it had resulted in the creation of the Everfree Forest, an area that had become increasingly dangerous over the centuries, with runaway magic changing the creatures in it. When Chrysalis decided to attack Canterlot, current capitol of Equestria, it had been full of ponies to celebrate the Royal Wedding of Princess Cadance and Shining Armor, captain of the guard. The death toll would have been in the millions and have destroyed the Royal Guards in the process. Her defending herself could have meant the doom for her entire country. So Celestia had had to rely on her subjects to come up with another method to save the day. 
        “There were too many civilians.” Celestia still regretted her attempt having been for nothing. If I had only used a little more power, but I noticed it too late. She chastised herself. “But that is another matter. You are an expert on non-equestrian life. As such you are the logical choice.”
        Lyra had been asked, by Celestia herself, to do research that would benefit all of ponykind; there was no way she could decline. “Yes. Your Highness.” The xenobiologist bowed until her horn touched the floor. As she raised her head back up, she asked, “What are my expenses and timetable?”
        “I need you to start within the next month and you have 15000 bits to use for gear and supplies. I am assuming that is enough?” Celestia inquired, wanting her expert to be as equipped as possible.
        Lyra barely suppressed a cough of surprise at that number. That’s enough to fund my current research on sentient life in ‘the wilds’ for a few years! Lyra could get the best gear; which she reflected would be needed for this assignment. 

4 months before the arrival of the M.A.L.P. into Equestria
        Lyra finally had all of her supplies purchased. One quick change gem that would allow her to mimic a changeling for thirty seconds, that gem alone had cost her 2000 bits due to the complexity of the spell that had to be woven into it. Three basic sound/image recording gems that could be hidden as jewelry; Lyra just thought they were really cool and easily hidden. Maybe I can use them for some future research, but this one is also about travelling light. The xenobiologist reflected. She could have gotten an emergency teleportation spell that would take her to a fixed point, but ever since that incident with Twilight in school, she could never trust a teleportation matrix. She also had a few other random gems and an assortment of gear. For food she would be living off of the land and would have to use her magic to make shelter, because whenever she found the hive she wouldn’t be able to leave without the chance of being detected. 
        Lyra was currently in the Canterlot Royal Archives, with its miles of shelved books, looking for any indication of where Changelings like to settle down. It was hard to pinpoint their exact location from the sporadic reports of missing ponies though. Probably to prevent them from being found now that their grand attack failed so miserably. Looks like I will need to start my search near Appleloosa. 
        Lyra got up from her table, leaving it covered in books, and stretched. “Thank you for the help Serris.” Lyra was tired, besides it was the librarians job to reshelf the books. Lyra waved goodbye to the strange magenta unicorn and left to get a ticket for the first train leaving Canterlot.

1 Month before the arrival of the M.A.L.P. into Equestria
Lyra had been lucky, after a few missteps and hasty getaways, not all from changelings; she had found and set up a small hole to hide in. It surprised her though; there were changelings now on patrol duty throughout what they perceived as their territory. The changelings were started to act more like a prey species, but it made sense, they could only live as long as they remained hidden. But every guard was using the same three disguises. 
        
CRASH!
        Lyra was broken from her slumber by the loud noise and she quickly looked around her little cave. The cave was a small complex in the side of a mountain in the badlands; she used it as a base and a place to sleep. Lyra jumped off her little blanket and doused all but one of her little gems that provided illumination; which was in a separate section of the cave across the hall from her.
        Lyra heard hoofsteps coming from the mouth of her cave, and more than one set of them. There aren’t any ponies this far out. So how did they find me? Lyra thought she had been so careful that she wasn’t followed back to her cave. That was when she realized that she hadn’t been watching the skies. Must have been one in that stupid sienna pegasus disguise. She berated herself; hoping there weren’t too many for her to escape. 
        Lyra focused her magic on the still lit light gem; forcing it to glow brighter. Her intruders went towards the light. If only this were a bug zapper. But she had another plan depending on how many there were. As the creatures entered the field of light; Lyra saw the black chitinous exoskeletons, small wings and black horns of two changelings. Only two? Lyra thought as she smirked, ready to put her escape plan into action. 
        Lyra started to pump even more magic into the small green gem, thankful that it disguised her aura around it. Slowly the gem started to grow brighter and brighter, unable to contain all of the magic that was being injected into it and started to crack. The two changelings looked at it, unaware of what was about to happen. Lyra closed her eyes and put the last bit of magic needed to overload the illumination gem. 
        With a loud crack that filled the entire cave with sound and could probably be heard for miles, the gem exploded and released all of its magic at once. Even with her eyes closed, Lyra’s world still turned bright white and her ears rang. When the light started to fade, the mint green unicorn opened her eyes, the light quickly fading now that it had lost its power source. She quickly lit another gem in her current room and charged at the changeling closest to the wall.
        Remember, go for the side; that way they are less able to stop your momentum and you will have the advantage Lyra remembered her training at the hooves of Aquatica before getting her flanks handed to her. Both changelings were still dazed as Lyra neared them and rammed the first changeling into the wall. The charging unicorn had made sure that it was her shoulder and not her horn that impacted the parasitic insect. She made sure because of the horror stories of unicorns that lost their abilities due to something similar and were no longer capable of using any magic. 
When they impacted the wall, Lyra quickly backed up and turned around, facing the opposite direction of her intruder. The xenobiologist then lashed out with her hind legs straight into the changeling’s chest with all the force she could manage. As her legs impacted, she could feel the creature’s chest cavity slowly give way. Slowly, its carapace gave way with a sickening crunch as the pony’s hooves broke through and crushed it into the wall. 
Lyra then looked around for the other intruder, ready to hit it across the face with her hoof or to throw a sharpened gem at its head using her magic. As the mare looked around though, she saw the cave was completely empty and she could hear the sound of hooves running out of the no longer safe cave. 
Lyra quickly gathered up what gear she could and followed the remaining changeling’s example and ran out of the cave. As she neared the mouth of the cave, she darted out just in case the creatures had planned some sort of trap. To her surprise though, the area was completely empty, except for a black chitinous leg sticking out from under a gray boulder. That boulder had been intended to sound an alarm in case anything got to close to her cave. Lyra never expected it to actually work for defense; nor how many changelings it might have kept from trying to attack her while she slept.
Lyra quickly looked up at the sky to view Luna’s stars as they floated in the sky. The mare was looking at the stars to figure out what direction she needed to head to next. That’s the Caballus Constellation, which means I need to head a little bit north of here if I am going to meet up with the local Buffalo herd. Lyra needed to head someplace for safety and the Buffalo herds were the most likely to shelter her for a few days. Besides, let’s see a changeling try to copy a full grown buffalo.
        
The day of arrival for the M.A.L.P. into Equestria
        Currently, Lyra was residing in a complex of desert shrubs, hoping her natural green coat would help her stay hidden. So far it had worked rather well and was large enough inside to accommodate sleeping quarters and a restroom. Hopefully with this being a nonstandard hiding place they won’t think to look here. But, she still had safeguards in place for most contingencies. 
        Lyra had one of her cameras set up to record what the changelings’ latest hunt had turned up. A group of about two dozen of the insects had walked past her base camp carrying an earth pony stallion in a green translucent cocoon. The poor stallion was wide awake, and she could have sworn he looked right at her, eyes pleading for help. Lyra just shook her head; while this kind of thing sickened her, she doubted even her friend in the guard could take out two dozen changelings this close to their hive. Although if she had anything to say about it; a rescue operation would start at the moment of her return. This wasn’t the first poor soul she had seen them take by force. It was almost was me. She shuddered at the thought of the incident at the cave.
        Lyra had been studying how their cocoons worked, and they seemed to sustain the captive and keep them nourished so the changelings could feed on them as long as they wanted. It also gave them a disguise for how to sneak into a city. Lyra fumed; already coming up with several counter strategies for everything she saw. 
        As the tail end of the group passed, Lyra could hear the hissing that constituted their natural language, picking up on the occasional word. Her eyes almost burst out of her head though as grey smoke started to curl in front of her muzzle. Buck me! Why now? She swore as the smoke flashed gold and turned into a sealed letter. Lyra quickly grabbed it with her magic and looked around to see if she was spotted.
        The group of changelings just kept moving on as she opened up the letter.

Dear loyal subject,
This letter has been written in a safe manner in case it falls into enemy appendages. We have an issue here that needs your specialized skills. There has been an encounter with what can only be surmised as a completely alien life form. I know your current study has taken a long time but I am recalling you. You are to get out of there as fast as can be safely achieved. You will return to the fallback location where a carriage will be waiting to take you to the creature. This is urgent and you are authorized to use any means necessary to return. I will arrange for a briefing for you in three days, make sure you are there before then.
Signed,
C

Something felt off to Lyra. The changelings had disappeared. Where is their rear guard? They always have two changelings guarding their… Lyra quickly grabbed everything she could in her magic and put them in a small satchel along her flanks. These were made to be more streamlined than the traditional saddlebags. Lyra took one more last look out of her hiding spot. Upon seeing no changelings, she ran as fast as she could in a route perpendicular to the one for Appleloosa. 
About five minutes out from her old base, Lyra heard a buzzing come from above her head. Two changelings were following her. The first lit its horn and performed a nose dive. The mare jumped to her right, missing the flying tackle by scant inches. Need a plan. She reprimanded herself. 
Lyra stopped dead and turned around to face her two assailants, knocking a small green gem out of her pouch using a knee. “What are you attacking me for?”
The one still in the air replied, thankfully still using Equestrian. “Magic was detected near the hive, little pony.” It hissed, fangs gleaming in the sunlight. “Then we find you running from it.”
Lyra moved her rear hoof over the misplaced gem, crushing it under the sudden weight. A neon green light started at her horn and then traveled down the length of her body. Everywhere the green energy passed, black chitinous exoskeleton to would appear and replace her mint-green coat. Her legs developed holes as did her tail, ears and new shiny wings. Lyra ran her tongue around her mouth, disturbed to feel giant teeth on either side. “And that’s what I was chasing, but I had to stop because you two couldn’t recognize one of your own in disguise.” The hiss in her voice made her skin want to crawl. Need to get out of here soon, the spell won’t last forever.
The two changelings looked at each other then took back to the sky and headed in the direction Lyra had been heading. The disguised xenobiologist let a few seconds pass, and then headed straight for Appleloosa as fast as her hooves could carry her.

The next day
Lyra entered Appleloosa about midday, exhausted, but having arrived safely. She quickly spotted the gold chariot at the local inn that would designate the location of her ride. The inn was an old looking wooden number with visible slats and swinging doors. The exhausted pony just pushed past them and walked up to the receptionist’s counter.
“Good morning Mis-.” The yellow earth pony got out before being interrupted by her guest.
“Where are the guards that belong to that chariot?” Lyra asked; not realizing how her disposition came across in her voice.
“I’m afraid I can’t just give out that ki-.” The receptionist tried again.
“Tell me what room they are in or I swear I will knock down every door in this place until I find them.” Lyra was not in the habit of making idle threats.
Lyra felt a hoof on her withers and turned around to look straight into a pair of blue eyes and a golden helmet. “Is this mare bothering you Miss Lemondrop?” He asked in the standard gruff guard voice.
“Not at all, good sir. She was just looking for you.”
I wonder if you would still be swooning over him if you knew that he might be a she. Lyra snickered. Then again, knowing some ponies’ proclivities.
“How can I help you then, Miss?” The guard asked
“Yes. Lyra Heartstrings. I believe you are here to escort me somewhere?” She huffed, surprised that the guard hadn’t been briefed already.
“Oh yes. Miss Heartstrings. We are to take you directly to Ponyville for your new assignment.” He stated.
Buck me.

> Side Story 2: M.A.L.P. Operator
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcript of the M.A.L.P. operators during first contact with Equestria as received by the Senate Oversight Committee on December 21, 2016

M.A.L.P. Operator (MO): So, What’s this about anyway?
M.A.L.P. Technician (MT): No clue. They just brought me in.
MO: Have you heard the scuttlebutt yet? They say its aliens? You won’t guess what else they’re saying.
MT: Sorry, I don’t put any stock in scuttlebutt. Can we just get on with the test?
MO: As soon as we get the all clear from the VIP. The technicians just cleared the rover as fit. And it’s being decontaminated now.
MT: Why do they have to decontaminate a machine?
MO: See. Aliens.
[phone ringing]
MT: Agent Reed? We have a go? Thanks?
[phone hanging up]
MT: We are good to go. Let’s see what all this tech is really for.
MO: Moving M.A.L.P. forward. If only they would let us see it through this damn tent. Five feet from entry.
MT: All sensors are online.
MO: Passing arm mechanism through the surface of the anomaly.
MT: Sensors reading green. Can you rotate the claw for me?
MO: Rotating 90 degrees.
MT: OK, Let’s pull it back and see if it sustained any damage.
MO: Withdrawing arm mechanism. Powering down for inspection.
---------------------------
MT: No damage, but got some strange readings off of the anomaly.
MT: Don’t give me that look. There was a slight power surge as it passed through. But every instrument I point at that damn thing reports zero. Everything says it’s not there.
MO: I wasn’t giving you a look.
MT: Yes you were.
MO: Moving on. What about radio transmissions?
MT: Nope. And we don’t have the gear on this rig to listen to the minor sound waves that were reported. 
MO: That’s strange. Maybe they just didn’t have the room on it. You should know how much tech they have in that thing.
MT: Touché. No clue how they fit it all in there though. 
MO: This is an older design. When the Hazbot III first came out, they couldn’t even remotely control these things.
MT: Interesting. Who’s that new guy?
MO: No clue. Let’s just do our job.
MO: Confirmed. No damage to M.A.L.P. arm. Sending it back through the anomaly now.
MT: [unintelligible whisper]
MT: Camera passing through the anomaly now; should have picture any second now.
MO: [low voice] and you complained about my speech
MT: Receiving signal. Cleaning it up now.
MO: Passing mid-way point of ingress. 
MT: Time to check the local gravity. The rate at which the M.A.L.P. falls combined with the sensors will tell us a lot about the physics there.
MO: M.A.L.P. should finish passing through in 3…2…1.
MO: Stopping forward motion. Panning camera right.
[sound of a crash]
--------------------
MO: Sucks for that guy. See, aliens. So what’s that purple one saying?
MT: No clue. They have it all run through a voice recognition program.
MO: But did they have to have it sound so funky?
MT: Yes, the United States government was going to spend more money on a vocaloid program so it wouldn’t offend your precious ears.
MO: Fine. Since I’m not doing anything, what do your sensors says?
MT: Air reads Earth normal for oxygen and trace elements. No sign of dangerous bacteria. Gravity appears normal along with atmospheric pressure at sea level. 
MO: What about radiation?
MT: Alpha and Beta are well within range. Negligible amounts of Gamma.
MO: What’s that fourth reading? 
MT: No clue. 
MO: Hey look. They’re leaving.
[crackling sound]
MO: So it signals weird shit, like floating objects. Good to know.
MT: Now that they left we can use the other instruments. Scanning for radio transmission…negative. Scanning for electrical systems…minimal.
MO: Which means?
MT: Most likely that they are not as advanced.
MO: No. That doesn’t make sense. Look at the architecture. What do the mapping programs say?
MT: Bringing up thermal and UV imaging and terra-hertz imaging program. Compiling now.
MO: Well, shit. 
MT: Ok. Yeah. They have their own advancements. 
MO: Is this an image of the entire building?
MT: Yeah. These two dots are the two we met previously.
MO: Is there anything else in the current room?
MT: Rotating camera. 
MT: Negative. No readings. But look at this: by that ‘door’ it looks like they’re guarding it.
MO: Look; the creatures are coming back.
MT: Reorienting camera. Leaving optics on.
--------------------
MO: What the hell. It just left and now they are both just sitting there.
MT: Calm down. It could be nothing. 
MT: Don’t poke me. 
MO: Look.
MT: I don’t see anything.
MO: I swear it was there! For a second it looked like a larger creature was just outside the door.
MT: Looking at the footage and I can’t find it.  Wait. Yeah, I see it. It could just be a sensor malfunction though.
MO: Have you picked up any radio transmissions yet?
MT: No. Why? And why are you grinning?
MO: I set this thing up to broadcast.
MT: How’d you sneak that kind of a transmitter in here? 
MO: I have my ways. But the point is, you haven’t received any. Maybe that’s why they didn’t use the IR model and it has that stupid cord sticking out the back.
MT: Idiot. You know how much power all the devices take to power? Let alone when we don’t know how long it has to stay?
MO: Point taken.
MT: Besides; they most likely have jammers running here. 
MO: …
MT: Just shut up and keep an eye out. They’re coming back.
[burst of crackling that slowly subsides]
MT: Dear God! What the hell was that? That was loud!
MO: That would be your weird-shit-o-meter going off. See? Floating objects.
MO: Can you see anything else in there?
MT: There’s a weird blind spot behind the purple one. 
MO: Weird?
MT: Yeah. It doesn’t read as anything; yet the patterns don’t match the surrounding air. I think however, those floating items are screwing with our sensors. 
MO: You sure about that?
MT: What else could it be? We don’t even have the ability to do that. And, the power needed is more than we could produce in a month. That would require the bending of the air around an object along with a complete dissipation of heat and sound.
MO: Yeah. Impossible. 

> Side Story 3: Lyra Gets a Gun
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

7/26/13
        Lyra woke up in a small utilitarian bed and looked around at the bare walls. “Well, it’s not like I haven’t slept in worse.” She consoled herself as she climbed off the bed and put her hooves onto the bland white-tiled floor. She quickly combed her cyan-gray and white mane using her magic that shone with an aura only a few shades lighter than her mint-green coat. Looking at her clock, Lyra was surprised to see that it was already ten in the morning. She had started to sleep in, as a luxury once Tony no longer needed daily training in Equestrian. 
        A little over eight months ago an explosion happened at the same time on both Equestria and Earth that caused a portal to connect the two points. Three months later the humans had sent Anthony Marcus and some bodyguards to check if it was safe and to open up diplomatic relations with Celestia. Their diplomatic meeting had gone well, from what Lyra had observed, and formal relations and embassies were being built on both sides of the portal. Lyra was happy that she was studying humans now: they were interesting, they could communicate, and most importantly they didn’t try to kill or eat her like her previous case studies.
        Lyra quickly used her magic to lift up her newest notebook , one of the fancy pens that Tony had given her, and a book on Equestrian political history from the past 500 years and headed out the door to get herself some breakfast and have her first meeting of the day. As she exited her room though, a lanky royal blue unicorn was blocking her path. Lyra looked up at the taller pony and stated, “Good morning Aquatica. How long have you been there?”
        “Only about an hour.” The Equestrian Royal Guard Drill Instructor replied. “The Princess asked me to deliver a message as soon as you were up.”
        Lyra appreciated the DI; if it hadn’t been for Aquatica, Lyra wouldn’t have been able to fight off the changelings that had attacked her out in the badlands of Equestria. But, Aquatica was a little cold and very focused. And, if Celestia hadn’t asked to wait until I was up, she would have knocked my door down at five to deliver it. She groaned; the xenobiologist just wanted to get some nice hay pancakes and get back to her studies on human nutrition and their preferred diet. Her studies were more important now that she was the cultural attaché to the Equestrian diplomat that was overseeing the construction of the embassy. 
        When Aquatica didn’t finish her story, Lyra was forced to ask, “So what is the message?” I don’t want to wait in these white halls any longer.
        Aquatica didn’t even pull out any paper, having memorized the missive.  “’Dear Lyra. I need you to reprioritize your research. The first priority needs to be to study their weapons and what they are capable of. Relations have been established, but neither side trusts each other and we must prepare for a worst case scenario. I am sorry that this will most likely interfere with your current research.’”
        Lyra quirked her head and furrowed her brows. “Why would Celestia ask me that? And how am I supposed to research their weapons?” I may have studied their wars but I never paid any attention to weapons, those were for Celestia’s Royal Guards to figure out.
        “I never said that it was Princess Celestia.” Aquatica responded, surprised that the scientist would make such an assumption. “The message was from Princess Luna. As for how to research it, I have already asked the main human bodyguard to meet you in the commissary.”
        “Thank you Aquatica. That will be all.” Lyra sighed and walked past the guard to finally get some food. She passed a few more rooms and eventually made it to the four way intersection. To the right was the room that contained the portal to Earth, and the left led out into Ponyville. What she wanted though was straight ahead. As she passed the intersection Lyra could hear another pair of hoofsteps behind her, a quiet pair.
        Lyra looked behind her to spy the Drill Instructor following behind. “I was told to keep an eye on you.” Aquatica replied to the unasked question.
        Lyra just groaned and started heading to the commissary again. As she pushed open the door to the dining hall, her attention went to the half a dozen tables spaced around the room. The two humans were sitting at the first table on the left; just where they happened to hold their meetings after their first day in the portal facility. Anthony Marcus about six foot tall with creamish-olive skin and brown hair. His bodyguard for the day was Avery Anwar, a taller human male with yellowing hair and a creamish color skin Lyra had begun to associate with humans. They both wore formal suits; nothing could stop either of them from doing so. There were only about a dozen other ponies scattered throughout the room. 
Lyra happily trotted over and sat across from Tony and Avery. She was a little surprised when Aquatica decided to sit on her left side, perfectly across from Avery. 
“Good morning Lyra. Ready to start on food today?” Anthony asked in perfect Equestrian, the two sides having long ago exchanged languages and now most people or ponies she dealt with could communicate in either.
Lyra looked at the books in front of the linguist and lowered her head slightly. “Not today, something else has come up.” She then turned her head to Avery. “I would like to study human weapons today.” But she couldn’t bring her normal excitement to bear.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any on me at the moment; if you want I could get the research facility in Nevada to send me a few for you to look at.” Avery gave her a calcitrant smile.
“Do not lie to us. I was told by Her Majesty that you had a weapon in the diplomatic meeting last week.” Aquatica accused. “Surely you can produce that weapon.”
Avery was reluctant to part with his weapon. As part of the CIA’s Special Activities Division, he didn’t like parting with his weapon, and never handed it over with ammo in it.
“As long as the only pony that touches it is Lyra.” Anthony stated; trying to keep things calm, remembering how Lyra had gotten slapped because he didn’t stop the situation when he had the chance. As he saw the royal blue pony about to agree the linguist added one more caveat. “And she will be the only pony at the table, especially if the other one is part of the Royal Guard.”
Aquatica was shocked; being told to leave the table was never a response she would have expected. “You can’t force me to leave the table; I have been ordered to keep an eye on things. 
“Then we can just leave. You can’t stop us, Celestia would never approve of you ignoring the request of the diplomat of the United States.” Anthony stated using his new power as diplomat to protect both his bodyguard and his pony protégé. Without another word the reluctant pony got up and moved over to the next table over, never letting her eyes off the mixed group. “Is this acceptable?” He asked the bodyguard.
In response, Avery pulled something out of his suit and played with it under the table. When he finished removing the magazine, he put the small gun in the middle of the table. “This is a sig p229 it-.”
“That’s ok; I would like to get a look at it on my own.” Lyra cut him off, looking at the strange device. It was shaped like an L with a small circle connecting the two lines. It was a metallic black color and smelled slightly of oil. The texture changed down the length of the barrel, going from a short of checkered pattern to completely smooth. “Is it ok if I pick it up?” Not knowing what it could do, Lyra preferred the safe approach.
“Yes, just do it as little as possible.” Avery stated knowing she was careful but also very curious. “It’s a training and safety thing.”
Lyra thought about that for a moment and nodded her head in acceptance. She quickly lifted it up in her magic to test the weight of a sig whatever. The scientist could only keep it aloft for a short amount of time because anything of terrestrial origin required three times the normal amount of magic to interact with. She estimated its weight at about two pounds and its length as seven inches and height at about five inches and set the device down. Very small and compact; light for a metal weapon. Lyra remembered being trained with a short sword and a bow before leaving to study changeling culture. It also has buttons and screws; to take it apart? Buttons could be to use it; but never screws. A weapon is all about function; if it isn’t useful, don’t add it. In battle it’s all about how much time it takes.
Lyra then started to spin the weapon around on the table, getting a look at it from different angles. First she needed to figure out how they held it. She imagined a human hand superimposed on the device. There are only two ways to hold it, by one of the long flat edges. The one with the hole at the tip would be too awkward for a human hand, especially with the flattened quarter circle with the lever inside of it. Lyra’s eyes widened with a start. A lever? Is that to take it apart or to use it though? But, with the curve on the lever and the curve on the part on the opposite of that leg. Lyra started grinning and looked up wide eyed at Avery who started to look a little unnerved. The large excited anime eyes just seemed unnatural to him.
“Can I see your hand?” Lyra said through fits of giddiness. Avery reluctantly put his hand out flat on the table, palm down. The mare grabbed his hand in her magic and flipped it so that she could see his palm. She then placed the part of the weapon where she assumed it was held by in his palm. The xenobiologist then started to curl his figures around the weapon; it was a perfect fit with the index finger wrapped around the lever and the area between his thumb and index figure in the curved area on the back of it. If Lyra were looking at anything other than the gun, she would have noticed the shock on his face as she wrapped his hand the proper way around the gun. 
That is how it should be held, but what is its purpose? Lyra mused and gave the weapon another look. It only had the one opening at the front. But, those buttons could change what it does or how it looks. The opening could be an injector of some sort, but where is the needle. It definitely isn’t for hitting; the grip and the leverage required would be all wrong. No, only a foal would think that if they looked at any of the evidence. Lyra then looked back up at Avery, her expression a mix of seriousness and curiosity. “The lever makes something leave that hole. Either something like an arrow, something like a needle, or something completely different.” 
Avery started to open his mouth, but shut it when he saw the look on her face, it was the same as when he tried to explain what the gun was. Hoping, incorrectly, that she had read some of this stuff before.
“Can you show me how you wield it in combat?” Lyra asked, hoping to solve her last question.
Avery looked around, knowing several of the ponies currently eating were Royal Guards and that they could spot an attack posture, no matter what it looked like. “Are you sure it is safe?”
Lyra thought for a moment, and then looked around the room. All but two of the other ponies were guards, and some were very protective guards. “This is an example.” She yelled to all of the ponies in the room. “Anypony that interferes without my express request will have to answer to Princess Celestia.” The xenobiologist may have been bluffing a little, but the guards wouldn’t risk it without a proven threat. She then looked back at Avery and stated, “Its ok.”
Avery put the gun back on the table and got up off the bench and picked it back up in his right hand once he was standing. The SAD Operative then put his left foot back and at an angle, feet spread farther apart than normal, both of his hands gripped the handle, but his finger was not on the little lever, and the weapon was at his eye level. Ranged, if he is sighting it must be longer ranged. Lyra pondered. “How far can it fire? How much?”
Avery looked over at her and put the p229 back into its hiding spot in his jacket and sat back down. “I can put five rounds into a one inch circle at 50 feet. It can hold 13 rounds at a time.” 
Lyra’s eyes lit up at her next thought. “Can I see it?” She was practically bouncing at the thought. 
Avery turned serious. “For that I will have to get special permission, and the guard should be warned.”
Lyra started to deflate, but then she jumped up and ran out the door. “Sorry Tony, the research will have to wait. Can you clear this on your side?” And then she was gone.

7/28/13
        Lyra, Avery, and Anthony were 30 feet from the edge of the Everfree forest, getting ready for the test firing. Lyra had gotten directly in touch with Princess Celestia and was given permission so long as a guard could watch the test. As a result, Aquatica was sitting about 30 feet behind the group and a little to the side.
        “I will fire a total of five rounds into predesignated targets.” Avery warned the mint-green pony that was staring at him. At the tree line there were two targets hung by branches. The first was a small block of wood with a red and white circle on it. The second was twenty feet to the right and on the ground but looked exactly the same. “And that will be all.” 
        Lyra happily agreed to the conditions. If it weren’t for the fact that I am the only expert, or that Luna had asked for my assistance, this would never be possible. 
        Avery went back into his firing stance that he had assumed two days prior. “Firing in 3…2…1…” After he said one, a loud noise rang through the air five times. The first three went into the hanging block; in a split second he shifted his stance and put the last two into the block sitting on the ground. The CIA Operative then released the slide on his pistol and holstered it under his jacket.
        Anthony had covered his ears knowing that it would be loud; he had visited the shooting range with his wife once or twice and decided that earplugs weren’t needed on the first occasion. Lyra however was just sitting there with her butt firmly planted on the ground, mouth agape. She looked at the first block and saw three holes almost right on top of each other, and looking at the other simply confirmed the same thing. 
        
Aquatica had seen the same thing as Lyra had and realized what kind of a weapon it could be for both offense and defense, and how hard it would be to defend against. It didn’t change her orders from Princess Luna though. ‘Thou shall observe and report. Find out what these humans can do. Thou are to listen to them, but must observe their tests and experiments. Return to thee when the observation is completed. Equestria must not be left defenseless against such a threat.’

        Twilight was fast asleep in her bed on the second floor of her library tree house. The purple mare had only gotten to sleep three hours before due to studying the latest results on the portal that connected the two worlds. Getting to bed at five in the morning wasn’t always that odd for her, not when she had spent days obsessing over it.
        Twilight fell out of her bed and landed on top of Spike, her dragon assistant, as the sound of a loud noise travelled through the air. More accurately it was five loud noises placed very closely together. As she stood up, her mane was sticking out and partially obscured her face. “What the hay was that!?”

> Sequel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sequel Politics is now up and live. 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/85232/politics
enjoy
> Deleted Chapter - Celestia Visits Earth
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was cut from the beginning of politics because it just didn’t seem to fit with the eventual war and the issue of magic on Earth


8/17/13
        Dear Princess Celestia of Equestria,
You are cordially invited to a weekend at Camp David to meet with President Margarette Tow and discuss the delicate political climate between Earth and Equestria and to work on building the peace. 

        Margarette Tow was walking through the woods of Camp David and wearing her traditional black business suit. The red accents from the suit complimented her red hair and contrasted with her green eyes. She put her right hand into the pocket of her business suit and fingered the small gem resting there. The gem had a tracking spell in it that worked like a gps locator. The gem had been in a letter from Celestia in response to the formal invitation that was sent the week before.

        Dear President Margarette Tow,
        I will gladly meet you this weekend at your chosen location. Inside you will find a small gem. This gem will work as a locator device, as it has already been activated please send it to wherever you would like us to meet. Knowing how you would prefer secrecy, this is a more appropriate method than travel by any other means.
        Sincerely, 
        Princess Celestia of Equestria

        President Tow figured it would be some sort of teleportation that Celestia would be using. Her assets in Equestria had returned reports about the purple one, Twilight Sparkle, teleporting if she was in a hurry. It only made sense that it was her teacher that had passed it on. As the time approached, President Tow pulled the small purple gem out of her pocket and set it on the ground. She then stepped back just in case it was an elaborate trap. 
        The President of the United Sates was nervous because their last meeting hadn’t been the smoothest of affairs and practically ended in a fight between two of the dignitaries. But that was needed to assess their personalities and to better judge how they would react. Tow reminded herself. And it kept the more emotional one out of Earth politics. The elder sister at least knows how to play the game properly.
 After another minute of waiting a small white glow began to develop above the purple gem. With a bright flash that was muted by the noonday sun, the Goddess of Equestria’s sun appeared in front of the President of the United States, the sun reflected off of her golden regalia of office and white coat and wings. “Good morning President Tow.” Celestia greeted and looked around at the bright green trees, and the cement path that led through them. They have their own ways. Their cities aren’t that much different than ours, and this place is more like a sanctuary to rest in. And Celestia did enjoy the gentle breeze that was in the air. 
Celestia’s deep purple eyes scanned the area, spotting several guards carrying rifles. The Diarch of the Day would have liked to scan the area for any other life, but the magical aura of her horn would announce it to everybody and might frighten the men with guns. Celestia had seen both Lyra’s and Aquatica’s reports of what even small guns were capable of. If only Luna would have informed of her plans beforehoof. But is this how they generally operate? She had to ask herself, knowing full well what kind of a threat she could appear as. That was the main reason she hadn’t invited any of the humans to the Summer Sun Celebration earlier in the year. 
President Tow observed the alicorn watching the trees and doubtlessly spotting the marines scattered about. This is technically a naval base though. As long as she doesn’t see the snipers it should be fine. Tow did not like having to deal with beings that were supposedly immortal and very powerful, neither did the people whose job was to protect her. “Would you care to take a walk while we talk?” The President enquired, “It will be a perfect opportunity to get some fresh air.” 
Celestia nodded her head once, letting her counterpart lead the way. As they walked, several of the armed humans followed behind the pair, observant but not showing any sign of hostility or aggression. “You humans sure do start building rather quickly, don’t you?” She stated, referring to the human workers that were already transporting materials through the portal to construct both the embassy and the ambassadors living quarters.
President Tow gave a slight nod. “Yes, the portal is not big enough to transport machinery across into Equestria so they need longer to build the facilities.” That and time constraints, Brent can’t be kept in the dark forever and eventually this will have to go to the Senate Oversight Committee and to go over the budget required. Not to mention having to create a subcommittee in the committee for foreign affairs.
“If you like,” Celestia offered, “I can have some unicorns assist you in the construction, just in lifting heavy objects.” President Tow looked thoughtful. 
“No. You must know of Earth’s history. Congress will have a fit if they found out.” The President explained. And would let you see one or two secrets. “However,” a smile crossed her lips. “There is a movie director you may want to meet. He specializes in the emotional pieces. It would help humans to feel they understand you.”