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Equestria, Eons ago
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Space, time, and dimension bent inwards as land, air, and sea churned on the ancient landscape. Far above the clouds, reality itself seemed to warp and split open as an impossibly huge shape materialized into existence over this new world. Gargantuan wasn’t an adequate word to describe the sheer enormity, for its mass was equal to the largest non-subcontinent islands at over five kilometers in one span. The coloration was largely a dark amethyst purple with a deep blue highlighting several zones that weren’t covered in green lines of energy or similarly green spines. In shape one could approximate it to be vaguely humanoid with two arms, two legs, a single ‘head’, and no tail; but even so it was extremely stylized and could mostly just be called such when viewed in outline. Really it was more man-like in the same sense a chance stone formation or city might be, though that last descriptor was remarkably choice in word given what the entity was carrying.
It landed as softly as something of its mass could even when slowed down, two enormous feet stepping down on the grounds between two mountain ranges and standing similarly tall. While it stood still as a statue, it was surveying. And those inside it liked what they found. The colossus lowered down as its energy lines dimmed, weapon systems spiraling down due to not being necessary. This magnificent living creature the size of a city met the ground, re-configuring its body to curl up and get beneath it. Massive arms shoveled earth onto itself, a span of energy washing over it to condense the debris back into solid rock as it began to self-entomb its form. Within an hour, it was completely buried save for a span of its central chest where the sternum would be. Having reshaped its body, the protruding portion left unburied stayed erupted from the ground as a sort of artificial hill that began to shape itself into something resembling a circular ziggurat temple with four large stony pillars standing watch over the core. By the end of the night, the giant had all but disappeared from view as much as it had appeared; buried under what was now a flat expanse of rock with the temple being the only part exposed across its span.
The temple erupted a beam of light as a gateway opened. Greeting the sun rise upon this new colony world, a creature called ‘human’ smiled warmly upon the new horizon as a small creature resembling a blue and white serpent, a ‘Dratini’, curled upon its perch of his shoulder.
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A few days later
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Settlement around the temple had paused. As eager as the colonists and their fantastic creature companions were to expand to this realm, a chance discovery had caused all of that to take pause. Instead, a roaring debate filled the halls of the buried ship interior beneath the temple.
“We must evacuate. Reawaken Kardas and leave this world at once!”, a younger man with deep black hair and a short beard barked as he jammed a pointing finger on the council table.
A young woman with darker skin and long, almost indigo hued hair, rolled her eyes and waved him off, “Naga, we know not for sure if the inhabitants of this world are really sapient or not. They might just be like most pokemon are: smart animals, but still just animals.”
The debate room was packed, looking more like the auditorium to a musical hall with the debaters as the performance than a courtroom. Many murmurs seeped through the crowd as the one standing between Naga and Valora, an older man by the name of Orion, stroked at his chin.
Naga sneered, “They might be primitive but so were humans once. If there is even the slightest chance these equines are sapient and developing, we have the moral obligation to leave and find a new place. We’re colonists, not conquerors. Arceus did not give us our protector goliath, one of her first born, to use as aggressors. You remember what was said: he is meant to be our protector, not our war engine”
The room was filled again with shouting, some in protest and some in support. Orion rubbed at his tired temple as he shrugged. Crossing his arms behind him, he turned around to the creature standing behind him that could best be described as a mixture of a dinosaur and hammerhead shark.
“Garchomp, use Scary Face,” he muttered and earned a nod from the creature. The garchomp stomped up to the front of the stage and threw up its head. Instantly the room seemed to darken, the only light being the terrifying projected visage of the pokemon’s bioluminescently glowing shark-like teeth, jaws, and eyes as it bellowed across the hall. Cowed, everyone went silent.
“Thank you,” Orion muttered as he fearlessly patted the sharkish saurian on the head before turning back to the crowd.
“Now, I believe an expedition force is required. We will not continue expansion until we know for sure if these primitive ponies or other potential races are indeed sapient or not. Just in case it is so, the best action is to observe and document best we can. If such a possibility turns out to be true, we will awaken Kardas again and depart for new lands. If not, we’ll remain but keep a close vigi-”
He was cut off by the entire hall shaking violently for several seconds. The walls creaked and groaned slightly before all went quiet again. Orion slowly turned his head and gave the ceiling a curious eye.
-Earthquake? Survey said this zone was geologically stable.-
His thought was soon filled with alarms of terror as sirens called out across the room, warning lights roaring to life as a much more violent shake accompanied them. There was the echos of fire, bending metal, and erupting earth that sounded like an explosion. A young man, Orion’s assistant by the name of Roller, skid to a halt after sprinting to the debate hall’s doors so fast that the yellow rodent-like creature perched on his shoulders, a pikachu, nearly fell off.
“Kardas is injured! We’re under attack!”
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One half hour later
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Smoke and alarms clogged the long hallway, one of Kardas’ veins, as much as the screams of the panicking people and pokemon did. Several men and women moved against the flow of the fleeing crowds, flying above them atop numerous powerful flying or levitating pokemon. One of them was holding onto the top of a circular shaped, metallic pokemon which sported four curled up, pillar-like legs and a large X on its scowling face; a metagross. The young man grit his teeth and blew some smoke out of his face as he tried to get a visual on what was chasing the fleeing civilians; having to pull his goggles onto his face. When he did see it, he almost wished he didn’t. It walked through the metal wall of the corridor behind the last to flee. Not smashed through, not blasted down, it walked through solid metal like it was a curtain of water. It was massive, though judging from how it seemed to shrink down to better fit into the space available, he couldn’t tell just how big or small it was supposed to be and the smoke obscured some of its features. What was for sure however was the ungodly cold that gripped the blood of those in the room as dark aerenth crystals tore out of the ground with every slow step it took. The outline of four horns, vaguely resembling a ram’s and goat’s, crowned its head as he felt its eyes upon it.
-With Kardas inactive and taking damage to his internals, we can’t use him to try and fight this thing! Gotta try to contain the damage and not hurt him any further!-
It advanced, destroying the hall as it strolled closer.
“Stand back! Do not come any closer or we will shoot!”, the man atop his Metagross roared.
It kept coming, freezing and melting parts of the hallway as it did.
“Last warning!”
Cold sweat overtook his brow as the glowing red eyes in the smoky form narrowed. The flashing alarm lights briefly revealed more of its form, which seemed to be almost like a moving water color in terms of appearance with swirling dark hues that bent around the light. It looked almost like some sort of dark energy taking a visible, tangible form. A echo of terror whispered into the minds of all present as the monster fearlessly advanced, the only noise in Kardas’ veins aside from the creature’s hoofsteps.
-”Invaders perish.”-
The trainer gulped as his blood frozen, sputtering out a command, “F-F-Fire FIRE! HYPER BEAM GO GO GO!”
His Metagross let out a metallic bellow as it and the other trainers’ pokemon did as instructed, unleashing a flurry of attacks forwarded by the enormous energy wave emitted by the Metagross’ ‘x’. Beams of plasma, flamethrowers, magic bursts, jets of energized water, sharpened flechette storms of stone, and a dozen other assaults all aimed at one source. The onslaught lasted a full minute before they finally ran out of steam and smoke clogged the chamber. The damage was extensive. The hallway was all but destroyed with nalpalm-like liquid fire, Kardas’ literal blood, spilling into the hall. Before any of the defenders could grimace at having to hurt their living ship, their worry was soon filled with dread when the same slow click of cloven hoofsteps sounded out from amongst the flames.
That thing was still coming, like the assault had only given it a moment’s pause. The echelon of a low cackle seeped out of the roaring flames; the horned monstrosity emerging from Kardas’ blood. Dark magic collected between its horns and fang filled jaws, a cold seeming to suck all the heat out of the room as a cornucopia of dark emotions washed over the humans and pokemon that sent them shaking in terror. But as the dark god stepped closer and was about to fire, two things happened.
The first was it stepping onto a damaged portion of the hallway, where a piece of the still alive Kardas’ exposed spinal cord and the metallic sheen was evident. On contact with it, the monster seemed to hiss in pain and wince all over, briefly weakening. The second factor was an aura washing over those in attendance. The inflicted terror lifted, like a curtain of light cast upon them to expel the darkness in the magic. There was a flash of brilliance and something appeared in chamber between the colonists and their attacker. It was literally made of light, almost blindingly so; but when it tackled the monster one could glimpse a forked horn and a mane decorated with a bejeweled tiara.
Harmony, a goddess of this realm, tackled Grogar out of Kardas’ body before he could finish destroying it with tears in her eyes; and a battle of gods that would rage across the whole of the planet ensued.
As the clouds and mountains burst asunder, new craters formed on the moon, and hundreds of thousands of magic blasts clogged the sky, every single trainer and pokemon with a healing move was doing all they could to suture their living transport’s cut arteries as others tried to beat back the flames. Naga and Valora stood back to back, keeping the fires down while giving out the commands to heal.
“So, no sapients on this world huh?”, Naga barked coyly, wiping his brow of sweat while manning a fire blanket. The deafening crash of an enormous explosion reverberated from outside. Peeking out through the skylight Grogar had made on entry, he glimpsed one of the two deities smash the other through the geoform before getting blasted by a beam of magic that sent them flying off all the way to the moon.
“Ah save it Nag- Audino, heal pulse again!”, Valora barked even as she used a hose to douse the flames so her rabbit-like pokemon could hop up and try to mend the internal bleeding with pink waves of energy. It was working, but agonizingly slowly; like trying to fix a gash on a Wailord with a child band-aid. There was no way they could get Kadras back to one hundred percent.
Valora’s eyes quickly locked upon the form of Captain Orion, whom was making his way towards them while directing efforts as he went.
“Please tell me we have good news!”, she gasped with pleading breath. Orion’s face only could turn solemn.
“If we all survive this, Kardas must hibernate…The Soul Drive has been damaged.”
One could have heard a pin drop in the room, had the sky not been ripped in two by dueling energy waves. The sheer power of which caused the earth to shake and the clouds to be torn asunder for dozens of miles.
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Western Equestria, Present Day
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In the flat planes of the Cloudsdale valley, two figures stood two meters apart inside a glowing circle etched onto the ground. The etching vaguely formed a sort of cross shape enshrined in a series of halos, the symbol of the Guardian of Mortals; lay in overlay with another symbol that resembled a multi-pointed star, the symbol of the Element of Magic. The motifs lay merged as they hummed to life with the grooves cut subject to a deluge of golden and magenta light.
One of the figures was a small, relatively speaking, alicorn with purple fur and a dark lavender mane that sported a magenta stripe. The Element of Magic, Princess Twilight Sparkle, closed her eyes and fed her magic into the rune she stood upon. Naturally given her element and study, the Equestrian magic was easy to supply. It was the new kind of magic, one born not from emotions and bonds but instead from the radiation of life itself, Terran magic that used mana; which she was rustier on. She poured both into the rune, as did her companion.
Across from her was something that at first appeared to be a larger alicorn, white fur with a green tint contrasting to a leaf green mane; but as she homed in on the magic the spell maintaining the facade broke away like fractured pottery. Where there was once a conical horn there was a twisted, spiny one. Where there was once silky fur there was now polished carapace, with butterfly wings replacing the avian pegasus ones her disguise bore. Where there was once an alicorn, now stood a changeling queen; the second ever. Not a native to this world, she had the inverse problem of what Twilight Sparkle had; adept at the Terran magic she taught Twilight but only decent at the Equestrian spells Twilight had taught her. In her true form she might be taken for something even more bizarre, but to Twilight the Guardian of Mortals was called Lea; Mothra Lea.
But, between two of the most adept magic users in their respective worlds, it was enough despite any difficulty either had with the other's native spells. The combined rune built upon itself, spreading its glow through trails that scattered through the ground like electronic signals through a circuit board. For a brief moment one could see the trails race out, zigzagging across the landscape and surveying every tree, every rock, every open field and every valley. The glow died out in both the rune and the horns of its casters as the spell wound down. Twilight and Lea panted briefly, momentarily winded as they looked to each other to cast a small smile and nod; a reassurance of wellness. Without a word, they spread their wings and flapped them enough to ascend into the air and get a few dozen meters up. Back to back, they mirrored each other's movements and put a hoof above their brows as they got a lay of the land around them.
"See anything?", Lea muttered, letting her green and blue eyes crisscross the lay of distant mountains.
"Nothing yeeeeet-", Twilight mumbled, furrowing her brow at the forests to the east before a glimmering shine caught them. The trails of light that went across the ground built in intensity in that direction flickering like an emergency flare to point the way before starting to dim.
"Wait! There, there!", the alicorn yelped, tugging at the changeling queen's forelimb. Lea only managed to turn her head around and see what Twilight was talking about for a moment before she poofed into nothingness with a flash of purple magic. An identical flash sounded off a distance away and now Lea was looking at the light trails no less than three meters away, having been teleported to the edge of a forest by a spell along with its caster.
The changeling, former kaiju, shook her head and scrunched her nose.
"I don't think I'm ever going to get used to that," she quipped, eyes still spinning.
Twilight chuckled awkwardly and rubbed at the back of her head while lowering her ears, "Eeehehe, sorry about that. Just, after that last incident we shouldn't take any chances... Especially with-..."
Lea outstretched a hoof and put it to the bottom of Twilight's jaw, pushing up gently to shush her, "It won't happen again. Not with him."
Twilight, albeit a bit reluctantly, nodded.
"Still, we've surveyed almost all of Equestria with this kaiju detection spell and this is our first hit... Save that false alarm,- or rather heart attack,- Rodan caused."
Lea's eyelids lowered and she deadpanned, "Quite."
Twilight shrugged before continuing on, "Point is, we know this Dimension Tide thing on Terra is what brought you to Equestria and it likely brought at least a few other kaiju afterwards. We still don't know where this 'Monster X' is and after what happened in the north, I'll sleep easier knowing if any of them came to our realm that they're not in Equestria."
"Of course Twily, just remember," Lea muttered as she put her hoof to her friend's shoulder and wiggled her antenna, "Fortune favors the patient. I know the detection spell takes time to prep but we don't want to get caught unawares or rush into anything."
Mothra smiled at the alicorn, retracting her hoof and taking point before the forest they now stood before.
"I'll take lead in. If anything happens-", she glanced back at Twilight as the alicorn struck a determined, though on her Lea thought it looked adorable, expression.
"I'll charge you up and we'll handle it together with the city sized moth."
Lea chuckled, "That we will."
Steeling their nerves, they headed into the forest with their magic blasts on a the metaphorical trigger finger. They didn't know who they expected to find. Given all of whom was sighted it could have been someone as horrific as Grand King Ghidorah, mindless as the Gyaos, or other characters whom were their own brand of dangerous like Monster X. The only thing that was certain was the entity or entities in the forest weren't native to Equestria. Either which way, cautious glances were exchanged to every tree and every clearing they passed; trying to catch sight of any soul or any trace they'd leave behind. But rather than sight, it was sound that first tipped the pair off to what was amiss. It was loud, gradually building in pitch and volume over time. Mothra Lea recognized it first as it was a common trait of Terra, though Twilight Sparkle was a quick study as well both from the rare usage of them in Equestria as well as her time in the human world.
Twilight cocked a confused eyebrow and glanced towards Lea, "Is that a... jet engine? Any kaiju use those?"
Lea looked upwards and around, trying to place the sound, "Nebulan cyborgs use wings or thrusters. Given how you never mentioned planes much, I take it that's not something from around here either?"
Twilight Sparkle shook her head, wincing and covering her ears as the volume grew louder. The winds began to pick up and twist, spurring the both of them to cover their ears and shield their eyes from the sudden gusts. The sound of the engine was blaring, deafening now; as they desperately tried to find it. The wind shook the trees, briefly opening up a seam of visibility in-between them. For a split second, something massive flew overheard. The jet noise was coming from it and the general shape suggested it was some sort of aircraft; though not one Twilight or Lea could recognize despite getting a decent look at it. It was taller than it was longer, looking almost like a flying five pointed star shape with the tip sticking upwards, on the backs of the metallic wings were the whirring roar of multiple jet engines. In scale it wasn't gargantuan, though still quite notably large at around 120 feet in span of its two more horizontal star prongs, and maybe fifty percent more in height. The shape and build, along with its speed, didn't suggest something built as like a fighter plane or high speed scout; in fact the large center mass and appearance of what looked like may doors on the back indicated it was more like a carrier of some kind.
Leaving much as it arrived, the odd aircraft flew off going westward; deeper into the forest. Twilight and Lea watched the craft depart, glancing between it and themselves with a clearly confused expression.
"Please tell me you recognize something, anything?", Twilight yelped a bit loudly to ensure she could be heard over the departing engines.
Mothra Lea puzzled at the craft and shook her head, "Humans on Terra made some weird craft, the aliens even weirder. That one? That's new though. Surprised it came through unaltered."
"Could be the tear between your world and Equestria that Dimension Tide made hasn't healed or stabilized yet. Things come through unaltered!.... Or more craziness is happening, probably that given our track record...", Twilight Sparkle grumbled.
"Might call that bet, look!", Mothra Lea shouted as she pointed at the ship.
The suspected bay doors turned out to be just that as they had opened up and something was floating out of it like a cloud of loose balloons. They were roughly spherical in shape and easily were present in the dozens. Most seemed separate and had some things sticking out of the sides and top, but at this distance neither pony nor changeling could tell what they were looking at; and a few in the crowd looked like they were clumped together in groups of three set packed in to the point they resembled a triangle formation from this distance.
"What... in the name of.. Tanaka?", Lea muttered, squinting at the objects as they fell closer to earth. But rather than hitting the ground and exploding like bombs, which was the Mothra's first worry; they instead gently floated down and seemed to levitate about two meters off the ground at the lowest. Coating the grounds below where the ship traveled, the two mages snuck closer to have a look as some of the odd cargo went about the forest. When they got close enough, they were both sure they had no clue what they were looking at.
The best comparison Lea could make was to some kid's toy from back in Japan. The sphere part was accurate, as the core 'body' for the creatures was a solid, medium gray sphere with a single googly-eye on the center. Attached to either side was a horseshoe shaped magnet, complete with a red colored north tip and a blue colored south tip; with a large screw sticking out of the sphere's top with the head positioned up. Quite honestly the heroines had no clue if they were looking at a machine, some kind of bizarre animal, or an animated hardware store aisle. Additionally perplexing were the larger shapes set in a triangle. Now that they could see them going about their business with their smaller brethren, they appeared to be nothing more than three of the previous creature types moving in a very tight formation; sometimes not losing touch like a trio of conjoined triplets, other times staying in a single position with the other two hovering close by.
“Aaaare those things from… ?”, Twilight muttered as she leaned in closer to Lea.
The changeling queen only shook her head as one of the odd entities locked its cyclopean eye upon them.
“Terra has a great many oddities, that isn’t one of them.”
The machine or creature, neither was really sure which, hovered down closer to the duo. It stopped a few meters away, hovering about two meters off the ground despite lacking any clear means of propulsion. It did nothing as its almost googly-eye sporting ‘face’ looked them over, just rotating the cartoonish looking magnets flanking its sides and the screw at its top while twitching two smaller screws on the bottom of its body like a pair of mandibles. A sound best compared to that of scraping metal and whirling gears briefly screeched out of the oddity, drawing over more of its kind as well as some of the larger, trio-configured compatriots. They encircled Princess Twilight Sparkle and Mothra Lea, quickly giving the two to move a bit closer together.
“Think they’re friendly?”, Twilight whispered through her teeth as she forced a grin to try and look pleasant.
“Well they’re not attacking.”, Lea grunted, biting the inside of her lip.
The odd beings, unbeknownst to the duo known as pokemon called Magnemite and their enhanced, trio state Magneton; began to whirl around in two circles orbiting the pair with the Magnemite going clockwise and the Magneton going counterclockwise. The space inside the circles began to shift, a crackling sound building up inside Twilight and Lea’s ears as a likewise blue glow began to form up across the pokemon. In an instant they felt frozen, gripped by a combined electro-magnetic grip channeled by blue arcs of energy shooting out of the Magnemite and Magneton’s magnets. Fortunately for the pair they had not been blindly optimistic about the strange creatures’ intentions and had prepared in the moment between the energy build up and their attempted capture. Emotions whirled and the power of mana surged, a combined wave of Equestrian and Terran magic shooting out of the both of them to form a dual layered bubble of magic as a barrier.
Broken free of the pokemon’s grip, Twilight teleported them out of the circle and landed them twenty paces away. No sooner than they did however and their attackers were hovering towards them again with narrowed eyes. Arcs of electricity shot out of the screws mounted on their bodies, the Magnemite’s Thunder Shock attack and the Magneton’s larger Thunder attacks ripping the forest apart all around them. As Lea guarded them with a barrier, Twilight ignited her horn and returned fire, striking at one of the Magnemite with a concussive magic bolt that won them a metallic clanging sound on impact. While the flare of magenta magic did almost comically send the pokemon spiraling in the air like a spun bobblehead, it soon righted itself again without much apparent damage.
Lea grimaced, “They’re tougher than they look!”
“Made of metal on the outside, concussive just knocks them around- Look out!”, Twilight yelped as she grabbed Lea and teleported them again to avoid the barrier having to try and tank a massive joint Thunder attack by all the Magneton at once. The massive thunderbolt ripped the ground open and left a burnt crater in its wake. The duo reappeared on the opposite side of the clearing.
“Suggestions?”, Twilight barked as she rapidly fired concussive blasts at the approaching pokemon. It might not have hurt them much, but it was helping to at least stall their advance by physically shoving them back.
Lea wracked her brain before a light bulb went off in her head, “They’re like machines!”
Twilight Sparkle narrowed her eyes and deadpanned, “... Naaaaaaaaaaah, really?”
Lea just ignored her, “As I said, machines with electricity and metal. That means they’re good conductors of electricity and heat.”
“Well considering their hosing us with lightning bolts, how’s about we skip the shock treatment and go for broke?”
“After you,” Lea barked, plasma building up on her forehead and eyes.
Twilight Sparkle snorted, focusing on the same sort of angry thoughts she did one particular day with friends when a hydra got involved. Unlike the similar state her mentor had, this didn’t give her a bolster in power as much as it did alter her power. And given the kind of magic she knew and the alteration that occurred when her mane and tail burst into flames, it seemed like it was for the best. Red eyes narrowed above a smirk.
They both dove to the side and dropped the cracking barrier, dodging the lightning strikes taking aim at the central Magneton from two opposite angles. Swinging around as they flew in formation to make a circle, a flaming Twilight Sparkle and glowing Mothra Lea fired a barrage of burning magic flares and plasmatic prism beam. The Magneton let out a metallic shriek as it was engulfed in the blasts, fidgeting and whirling for several seconds before the attack cut off. Singed, smoking, and with a large “X” formed over its three eyes, the pokemon dropped to the ground; not dead due to the briefness of the assault despite its severity but most certainly knocked out.
A chorus of robotic screeches rang out as the two heroines hovered next to each other, the other Magneton and the horde of Magnemite leering as they began to form up. Rather than advance again, they instead spun around in a conical spiral, pooling lightning together that was launched up into the sky.
“Um… Were they trying to hit us with that?”, Twilight muttered.
Lea only grimaced, “No, but something tells me we shouldn’t be glad about them choosing to do that instead. Time to go?”
“We don’t know what’s going on and we waste time and risk trying to do that here, a tactical retreat be bes-”
The alicorn was cut off by a deep, clanging, mechanical bellow coming from the sky. In the same direction the lightning bolt, a signal flare, had been fired; a massive object rapidly flew towards them. While again lacking propulsion like the Magneton and Magnemite, this entity’s speed scaled positively with its size. It’s deceptively soft landing was heraded by two massive thunderbolts ripping into the ground on either side of the alicorn and changeling. The shape could be surmised as humanoid, albeit more vaguely in the sense it had two arms, two legs, was upright, and lacked a tail. The lower legs were very wide and much of the body was boxy in formation. A single, large light formed something of an eye on the upper chest where the middle of the face would be if it had one; with a larger light mounted on the upper torso that seemed to contract and tighten like a camera lens. This wasn’t like the previous beings, whom were something of a blurry line between mechanical and a living entity; as Twilight and Lea especially had both seen enough technology in their day to recognize a machine. The mecha, lacking better terms to describe it, started to advance.
Twilight Sparkle pursed her lips, dropped the fire mane, and threw a hoof around Lea’s shoulders as she stared at the mecha with wide eyes.
“Yep, nope! Tactical retreat.”, She sputtered before teleporting them well out of sight and not stopping until they got back to camp.
The mecha and it’s accompanying pokemon stood motionless before looking up to the flying airship that flew over to hover above them. A masculine voice called out from the intercoms, played out from both the ship and a set of speakers on the mecha’s torso.
“Continue to search, we’re not here for them but bring them back if you find them. Get the damaged scout up here.”
The Magnemite and Magneton screeched in compliance, resuming their survey pattern as the mecha gathered up their unconscious number and flew back to the ship.
===============
Kilometers away
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A burst of magic begat the arrival of Twilight Sparkle and Lea, whom dropped to the ground back at their campsite.
“Well!.... That just happened!", Twilight yelped as she rubbed at her aching horn, “If those things aren’t Terran, then they sure ain’t Equestrian.”
“Couldn’t be Terran anyways. Only way to get from there to here is Dimension Tide, and it was destroyed.”, Lea muttered as she gently put her horn to Twilight’s. After a few moments concentration and an invocation of a healing rune, she managed to dispel the coming magic migraine before its onset.
Twilight took a deep sigh of relief, “You definitely got on my good side for doing that after we first met, remind me to ask for the lesson later… As for our guests, think maybe they’re from somewhere else and came through the dimensional hole you and the other kaiju made when you got forced through?”
The changeling shrugged, “It’s possible. It would explain why they aren’t getting changed into native forms if they bypassed the barrier.”
Lea suddenly froze, looking about her surroundings.
“Wait.", Mothra’s antenna began to twitch. “I sense something.”
“Not agaaain! Is it those things we just saw?”, Twilight grumbled as she started to ready her magic.
“No this is something different, something different...”
Walking to where she felt the disturbance, Mothra and Twilight came upon a pond in the middle of the forest. The pond itself seemed to be no more than 5 meters in diameter, but despite the darkness of the forest giving it an eerie feeling, one could tell if was no deeper than a foot. Looking closer the duo found that something was making ripples in the middle of the pond. In between the areas of said ripples, they could vaguely see something “swimming” in the pond.
“What is that?” Twilight asked.
The alicorn soon got her answer as the ripples became more intense, then something began to emerge from the lake. It was a silhouette at first, the only visible feature was its red eyes. It stood about 4 and a half meters high and had two “wings” on its back that seemed to move and reshape themselves, it also had six legs and a tail. When the otherworldly creature came out the lake and settled down on the ground in front of the mages, its shadowy appearance faded away to reveal its actual look. It had gold half rings circling the back of its neck, Its head had a gold crown-like object surrounding it with two large horns pointing sideways. A thick black stripe ran vertically along the front with red horizontal stripes. This creature overall looked intimidating, which was why both Twilight and Lea still had not for lack of a better term “taken her finger off the trigger”.
However, Mothra then noticed that there was something else riding on the back of its head. The creature lowered itself so its rider could get off, and once it did, Mothra immediately recognized what it was.
Standing there, unaltered, was a female human in Equestria.
The human looked over at Twilight, she mumbled something. It wasn’t clear, but Mothra could have sworn she said “Huh, so that's what Dusk Shine looks like as a girl.”
The human held out her hand in greeting.
“Salutations, I’m Platinum; Platinum Berlitz. Current champion of Sinnoh, keeper to Giratina, and I do believe there is an issue here I’m supposed to help with.”
