//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Expected Friends: Unexpected Problems // by Sleepyted //------------------------------// “Stand down everypony,” Twilight commanded, giving the guards that had their spears leveled at the bot a stern look. The guards looked at each other in confusion but did as ordered, lifting their spears away from the bot while keeping them at the ready. The group of ponies watching looked on in confusion at Twilight’s recognition of the strange creature. “You know this thing?” Starlight asked in confusion. “Yeah, this is E-DE,” Twilight explained. “He was in the Mojave with me. What are you doing here boy?” E-DE floated over to the princes, happily beeping before bumping into her much like a nuzzle. After the little greeting he floated back a bit and with a thud a scoop opened up underneath him. A note floated out and slowly landed on the cobbled floor below. Using her magic the princess picked it up, bringing it to herself to read. “Dear Hopefully Twilight,” She read aloud so her friends could understand. “Long time no read, eh? A lot has happened since you left, including myself finding a more stable power for teleporter (with a bit of help from Gannon, the entire Big Empty, and a dozen scientists that I had hired but they didn’t do much). We’ve tested the teleporter a few times and when we were happy with it we sent this little ball of fun, hopefully he’s still kicking! Anyway if this is Twilight I wanted to let you know that I’ve decided to visit with our friends! (Also since you don’t have radiation it would be nice to have a place to grow crops but that isn’t as important) From The Queen of the Mojave, Anne.” “So your friends from that place are coming to visit?” Rarity asked. “It would be nice to thank the pony that took care of you while you were gone.” “I’ve never thrown a party for an alien!” The party pony cheered. “This will be awesome!” “It will be cool to see Anne again, see how she’s been taking care of the Mojave,” Twilight noted. “Although, it doesn’t say at all where she is right now…” There was no more signs that Anne was coming to Equestria for quite some time, only E-DE sticking around Twilight and annoying her somewhat at times. He stuck to her like a bad smell, always there wherever she went, even having to have a talk with him to make sure he knew it wasn’t polite to follow someone into the toilet. The biggest sign that something was happening is when Giant Metal golems were spotted on the edge of the Crystal Empire. Despite everypony being to afraid that it was some form of Sombra’s magic still lingering in the frozen wastes, the few descriptions they were able to get made them sound a lot like power armor to Twilight. When she received word that one had been ‘captured’, she knew she had to get there quickly. Joined by her seven friends, including Spike, Twilight caught the first train to the Crystal Empire she could. Upon arrival they were greeted by Cadance and her brother, with many hugs being shared between them. A majority of the hugs, however, were directed towards Twilight. WHen the strange golems started appearing, her brother and his wife had feared she would fall off the face of the planet again. “I take it you’re here for the golem we caught?” Cadence asked, releasing Twilight from her hug. Twilight didn’t want to just say yes, because she thought it would seem rude that she made the trip all the way there simply to sate her curiosity, but before she could say anything her brother let out a chuckle. “You don’t have to say anything, we’ll show you,” He stated. “Any of you that would like to come along you’re more than welcome, otherwise feel free to go to the castle. We’ll have some guards escort you.” It wasn’t much of a surprise when everyone went along in a big group, with Spike choosing to ride along on Starlight’s back. Much to everypony’s surprise, instead of heading towards the dungeons where they assumed the ‘golem’ was being held, they instead altered their course to travel directly into town. Although she didn’t say it out loud, Twilight couldn’t help but wonder how they had managed to even capture someone in power armor. Due to her refusal to share any of the guns she had picked up during her trip, for fear of Equestria turning out like the Mojave, she hadn’t seen any type of heavy weaponry since her return to Equestria. She doubted that a spear would do much against an inch of solid steel plating, much less titanium, so she had to assume that whoever they captured had stood down willingly. Her train of thought was derailed, however, when she saw the building they were heading towards. In front of them stood a modest cottage with a contingent of guards stationed around it. One of the walls of the cottage had been destroyed, with the debri frozen in place by a large translucent blue crystal that encased the entire building. Surrounding the building were a circle of wooden barriers meant to keep the many curious onlookers out, however they looked so flimsy that an errant breeze could probably knock them over. As they got closer, Twilight was able to make out a massive bipedal figure in the center of the crystal. Due to the warping caused by the crystal it was encased in, she couldn’t make out any details, but she could tell that whatever it was was covered from head to toe in metal. “This cottage belongs to a student over at the university,” Cadance explained. “It fell through the roof and gave the poor mare such a fright. She froze it in crystal before running off to get help. We’ve got her put up at the Castle right now.” “This was the only one?” Twilight asked, peeking around as she tried to find a less distorted view of the creature. “That we know of yes, and since we didn’t know what it is we haven’t unfrozen it yet. We wanted to have a few more alicorns present first.” Shining stated. “We don’t know how powerful it is.” “Is this something you saw in that place?” Rainbow asked, hovering a few feet above the ground like she normally did. “It might be, but I can’t really make it out.” The purple alicorn stated. “Well, the mare showed us the spell to get rid of the crystal,” Shining said, “so if you’re sure about it we can do that any time you want.” “We might as well get on with this, then,” Twilight sighed. Taking a step back, she glanced over at a nearby guard that lookrd a bit more scared than his counterparts. “Give me your spear,” She commanded and wasn’t met with much objections. Grabbing the spear with her magic, she turned to face the crystal as her friends prepared to fight whatever came out of the crystal, should it be necessary. Not ones for fighting, FLuttershy and Spike stayed towards the back of the group. “Okay, when you’re ready,” Twilight stated. Cadence nodded in response before charging her horn. A beam of magic shot out of her horn and directly into the crystal, causing a few small cracks to form. Within a few moments the small cracks could be seen spreading along the surface crystal, and with a sound like breaking glass the entire thing shattered into dust, collapsing like it never existed in the first place. With a loud crash and thump the heavily armored figure collapsed to the wooden floor below, causing it to crumple and splinter under the weight. Bits of the wall and roof, no longer held in suspension by the crystal, rained down around the figure as it laid on the ground. With the crystal no longer distorting her view, Twilight now could say for certain that this was power armor. She identified it immediately as a set of X-01 power armor, with the massive shoulder pads and large plate encircling the neck being a dead giveaway. The head slowly moved after a minute of being still, causing all the ponies present to nervously aim their horns and spears at the being. Owwww…” a muffled voice groaned, the normally glowing yellow lights on the helmet dead and dark. It had no identifiable markings of any factions she knew of on it,  a dull gray coat of paint being the only color on it. “Who are you?” Twilight called as she stepped forward, spear at the ready. Being familiar with the suits design she kept her spear aimed at the neck joint, where the armor didn't cover. “Wha?” The body said again. They tried to turn their head, but the large shoulder pads prevented them from turning too far. “What group are you with?” Twilight asked again, slightly louder. “I can barely hear you,” The voice stated. “The fusion is dead.” “Step down, guys,” Twilight sighed. “He’s not going anywhere anytime soon.” Despite her words, nopony present relaxed. They were all still on edge. “I said ‘who do you work for’?” Twilight asked, raising her voice even more. “I ain’t saying anything until I can see who I’m talking to,” the person in the armor responded. “Then get out of the armor.” Twilight stated. “…” “You’re stuck aren’t you?” Twilight asked when no attempts to remove the suit were made. “No….” Sighing, Twilight lit up her horn, using her magic to levitate that armor up from off its back and onto its feet. “There’s not even emergency power,” the armored individual stated. “I can’t open up.” Going up behind it Twilight, twisted the large wheel on the back and saw the burnt fusion core. Happy that the core didn’t explode, she used her magic to manipulate something on the inside of the suit. With a hiss the hydraulics depressurized, allowing the armor to come open at its multiple hinges. With a grunt a human fell out backwards onto the rubble, hands going to his eyes as he was greeted with the bright light of the outside. He was wearing a red skin tight uniform, a hood over the head that hugged his scalp on the back was an icon of the Lucky 38 silhouette. “From New Vegas?” Twilight asked, using her magic to take the .32 revolver he had in a holster on his hip along with a knife strapped to his shin. “That obvious?” He groaned, sitting himself up. “It’s a lot smaller than it looks.” Applejack stated as she tilted her hat back. Once he opened his eyes up he looked over at Twilight, eyes first going to her scarred face where her eye was replaced before drifting to her side where the robotic wing was. “Midnight, right?” He asked pointing a finger. “Twilight,” She corrected. “I remember it being something about night,” He stated as he slowly got his feet under him and pushed himself up. “God, since when was it day? I swear it was night a minute ago…” “You were frozen,” Twilight stated as she took a step back. “Now you’ll come with us, I have some questions.” “Great…” It turned out this man went by the name of Mark, just Mark no matter how many times Twilight asked for a last name. He was a member of a small scouting group of seven pairs that was sent to Equestria, since they didn’t know if the teleporter would work right in the first place. Mark told them about how he appeared on the top of a mountain with a fellow scout. While he was lucky enough to make the trip unscathed, his compatriot was unlucky enough to end up halfway inside of the mountain. Whether you consider it luck or not, with everything from his armpits down being fused with rock, the scout didn’t last long. Twilight couldn’t help but blanch at the thought, now glad that she hadn’t ended up under Canterlot where nopony would find her remains. “We had beacons we were given that we were to place in a large open area where we wouldn’t piss anyone off at,” Mark stated as he sat down at the small table that wasn’t really built to comfortably seat someone of his size. “So what were you doing in the city?” Twilight asked. “Well I wanted to communicate with the other scouts to see if they set up shop somewhere,” Mark answered, “and I needed to get somewhere really high up to get a signal. That oversized castle thing was big enough so I tried to sneak up-“ “In power armor?” Twilight deadpanned. “…Yes…” Twilight thumped her head down on the table, sighing in frustration. “Did Anne purposely surround herself with idiots to make herself feel smarter?” She mumbled. Cadence didn’t take much convincing to allow Mark to go to the top of the castle. Twilight only had to tell them that he was signaling the person that had helped Twilight make it through the Mojave in mostly one piece and the royal couple couldn’t get him to the top of the spire fast enough. “Echo 3-2, Echo-3-2 reporting contact has been made with locals,” Mark said into his rather sizeable radio, holding the speaker up to his mouth. Static came from the box for quite some time and many repeats were made until a very static filled voice popped out. “Echo 2-1 here, Echo 2-2 lost in random fucking Mutant attack,” A voice stated. “Currently holed up in a jungle. Contact was made with Echo 3, 5 and 6. Echo 1 and 7 silent as of now. Have you found landing point?” “Negative, unless you want to freeze your balls off 2-1.”