“This is the area?” a husky heavy voice asked.
“Yes sir, the communications from Officer Bestla went dark here. There is a strange energy permeating the area I am unsure what it will do to our systems.” a robotic voice replied.
“Proceed with caution, send a signal to command informing them, also drop a relay beacon outside the energy’s field of effect.” the husky voice replied.
“Right away sir.”
Duncan, and Ushio watched from the edge of the kitchen as Cinder danced around the kitchen. “What’s happening?” Ushio asked fearfully as the demoness was actually cooking dinner. Cooking. Dinner. Without having been asked either.
“She’s been acting odd since Rarity’s, just the other day she took my shirt and mended it.” Nuada stated surprised to see that whatever she was cooking, the ingredients looked normal, “At least she’s not pulling a Ryoko.”
“What do you mean?” Ushio asked.
“You don’t wanna know,” Nuada said shaking his head, “let’s leave her be.”
“Okay, I’ll go get the linens in.” Ushio said before skipping out of the house.
“I swear, if she skips any harder she might touch the ceiling.” Nuada smirked after her and then decided to go about his own business for the day.
Nuada was back in Ponyville, his visits had became frequent enough he was thinking of seeing if Bestla could create a subspace door to somewhere in town.
“Restock on, cheese, herbs, milk, and eggs.” Nuada said to himself looking through his bag, “more mill-cut lumber, actually professionally made tool handles for the rake and hoe, and some more fabric for Cinder’s new hobby, hopefully this embroidery thing will increase her patience. Oh right her letter for Rarity.”
Nuada strolled over to the boutique and walked in. The bell rang and everyone in there paused to stare. The Gala was just a month away and every mare in Ponyville that was going was now hounding Rarity for her dresses or to have theirs altered. The boutique was silent for a full moment until Nuada waved and smiled. The loud din of conversation returned in full force and Nuada had to dodge ponies to get to the center where Rarity was discussing with a mare why she couldn’t just make her a dress for the gala.
“There is a whole month before the gala, you made those dresses for your friends in less time.” the mare complained.
“That was months ago before I got so many orders from all over to make dresses for other ponies. If you want I can alter a dress for you, but I simply cannot afford the time to make one from scratch. Amethyst you’ve known me for years now, I would make the dress in a heartbeat if I simply had the time.” Rarity said stressing her point about time.
“Alright I’ll take a look around at what is still here.” the purple mare said walking away.
“Please do, and next year please come to me sooner.” Rarity said waving her off.
“You seem busy.” Nuada said taking a knee to hug the mare.
“Oh it’s both dreadful and wonderful at the same time, I may have to hire some help if this keeps up.” Rarity said returning the hug, “now then what can I help you with, nothing wrong with the tux I hope.”
“Nope, Cinder just asked me to give you this letter while I was in town shopping today. You would be amazed at how much food a house of four goes through, if I didn’t have my own farm we would have starved by now.” Nuada said holding out the letter.
Rarity’s magic took it from him and she glanced through it, “I see, Cinder is asking for a pattern for a simple dress. Could you wait here for a moment while I fetch one from my studio?”
Before Nuada could reply Rarity was gone. Dodging the ponies milling around Nuada took a seat on the bench by her staircase. A few moments later he felt eyes on him, glancing around he spotted three pairs of eyes watching him from one of the dressing rooms. Judging by the size and height off the ground, he figured it was some foals and paid them no mind.
“See I told you he was weird.” Scootaloo said watching the strange creature sit up on the bench.
“Scoots just because he’s strange doesn’t mean he’s bad, I mean he’s the one who got everyone to calm down about Zecora.” Applebloom said thinking back to the first day she met him.
“And my sister seems to like him, she’s only complained about his manners a couple times when he was helping rebuild out here.” Sweetie Belle said remembering her sister praise the prince.
“But I mean look at him, he’s all tall and gangly, Rainbow Dash says he even flies, without wings!” Scootaloo said waving her hoof around.
“Well he is crazy strong, I mean he can keep up with ma sister and brother out in the fields when he trades work for apples.” Applebloom said starting to recognize how strange he was.
“And he’s really smart about things, and graceful. When I was watching him work he never slipped or dropped anything, and he moved so fast my eyes started to spin.” Sweetie agreed.
“So we agree he’s strange?” Scootaloo asked.
“Yup!” “Yes!”
“But doesn’t seem inherently bad.” Scootaloo stated
“Yup!” “Yes!”
“So what do we wanna do?” Scootaloo asked them, “he’s so strange there must be something we can do to try and get our cutie marks.”
“Oh look at his foreleg.” Applebloom said drawing attention to the bottom of a sleeve.
“That’s actually called an arm.” Sweetie Belle said looking, at the bottom was what looked like part of a picture.
“Whatever it is, it looks like he might have a cutie mark.” Applebloom said.
“So should we ask him how he got it?”
Just then a loud screeching filled the air and all the windows rattled, the vase near Nuada started to fall, only for Nuada to catch it. Setting it down he looked at the window concerned, everypony was also staring out the window. Frowning Nuada saw what the source was and left the boutique after asking Lyra to tell Rarity he had to leave.
The crusaders were also watching the window, and they all saw a large object flying over the Everfree forest. Remembering months ago when Bestla showed up Applebloom realized what it was.
“Girls it’s another spaceship.” she said bouncing happily, “more aliens.”
“We should go meet them, maybe we can get our cutie marks in alien greeting?” Scootaloo said eager to get moving.
“I don’t know looks like it’s parking over the Everfree.” Sweetie Bell said concerned.
“It must have gone to Nuada’s place, and there’s a clear path there sense Cinder came through a few weeks ago.” Applebloom figured.
“Okay let’s do this.” Scootaloo said pumping her hoof.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, ALIEN GREETERS!” they cheered loudly.
Nuada was blazing over the treetops flying straight towards the GXP shuttle parked by his tree. Before he could get to it, the shuttle took off and left into the sky. Coming in for a landing he saw Cinder and Ushio holding each other, Ushio was crying and Cinder was flaring flame out of her nostrils very angry about something.
“Girls what happened?” Nuada asked as his feet hit the sand.
“Bestla’s been arrested.” Ushio cried.
“They said she was trespassing in a special reserve location. Specifically interacting with the locals. I had to keep Ushio hidden as Bestla told me, as they were coming down, they would probably take her too.” Cinder said, “stupid Bastards.”
Nuada ignored the curse and glared at the sky, they would probably still be nearby if he acted quickly he could probably pull off getting her back, might have to stretch some truths though. Flicking open his communicator Nuada put in a call to his one friend with a ship.
“Nuada? What’s going on?” Sparkle asked her face filling the screen.
“Bestla was arrested for trespassing in a special reserve location, specifically for being here on Harmony.” Nuada said, “would you give me a ride up there so I can get her out of it?”
“I suppose I could, but she did break the law shouldn’t she be punished for that?” Sparkle asked as the background around her started moving, looked like she was moving quickly.
“What are friends for if not for helping bail them out of a tough situation. Besides I have an argument that should fix the problem.” Nuada said with a smirk.
“Alright be over in a few minutes.” Sparkle said cutting the feed.
“Okay girls we’re going into space to save Bestla.” Nuada said, “grab some nice formal clothes we’re going to crash court.”
“We’re going to save Bestla?” Ushio asked.
“We’re going to try.” Nuada said patting her head.
It had taken Sparkle ten minutes to be ready to come in, and the minute she touched down Nuada was climbing into the ship, a large bag on his back. “What’s with the supplies?” Sparkle asked watching through her helmet as Ushio and Cinder also came in carrying duffel bags each.
“As much as I want to think I can just waltz in there in a half an hour and make everything right, this may take a few days, if you need you can just drop us off.” Nuada said as they finished loading everything.
“It’s okay, I was just staying at my room in Starswirl’s ship, with the commander arrested for ‘consorting with terrorists’ and all the stuff after that I just left, I still contact the commander and some of the team but right now we’re in a holding pattern till the Reapers actually arrive.” Sparkle explained closing the doors.
“Sounds like a lot happened since we last saw you.” Nuada stated as Ushio and Cinder strapped in, Nuada took the co-pilot seat.
“Only for about a week, after the alliance revoked my special enlistment status I went to Star’s to study and research.” Sparkle explained, “besides helping this new pony Comet Crusade deal with some stuff in his world, I’ve been taking it easy.”
“You’re always welcome to come by and stay for a while.” Nuada said patting her shoulder.
“Thanks” Sparkle said her her helmet hiding a blush.
“I can taste that Sparkle.” Cinder said from the back, “I bet a chang-”
“Cinder dear please be quiet I am busy flying and speaking with Nuada.” Sparkle said with a strained voice, her horn glowing as a magenta aura covered Cinder’s mouth keeping it from moving.
“I wouldn’t provoke Sparkle.” Ushio said quietly to Cinder, “remember she’s still an alicorn princess.”
Cinder growled and glared at Sparkle but relented and stopped struggling.
“Thank you, now then Nuada what is going on here?” Sparkle asked.
“Bestla was arrested for trespassing in a special restricted zone of the galaxy.” Nuada explained, “it seems that Harmony matches the Earth from Tenchi Muyo in this world.”
“I see and Bestla is a cop and should have known better, so what is your plan?” Sparkle asked.
“Have you ever seen and old show called Star Trek?” Nuada asked getting head shake. “Well they have something called the prime directive, basically the more advanced society has to hold to the less advanced societies rules for punishing law breakers, so I’m going to arrest Bestla.”
“WHAT!” all three females yelled.
“It’s simple if I can convince them that she’s currently carrying out a sentence at my home I might be able to convince them to let her stay, maybe even tack on some extra time to knock out two timberwolves with one stone.” Nuada explained with full confidence.
“Well I hope you’re ready, I have a ship on my sensors looks like they are preparing to leave orbit.
“As ready as I can be.” Nuada, “let’s hail them and see if they’ll talk to us.”
“Sir an unknown ship is hailing us on an unregistered frequency.” an officer said.
“Bring it on screen.” the captain said watching the viewing screen. He saw a small tube like shuttle, thing was obviously designed for short range travel, and could only hold two or three crew members, “is there any ships in the area, this looks like it couldn’t even handle travel within it’s own system.”
“No sir, other than the planet below being a blind spot due to the energy interference I can safely say there is nothing near us. I think it may have come from the planet sir. There is an energy trail coming off of it that matches the interference of the planet.” the crew member stated, “sir I think it’s a local’s ship.”
“Impossible when we went down they had no such indications of that level of tech, open the channel we’ll find out what’s happening.”
“On screen sir.”
“This is the GXP ship Hyperion, I am Captain Durin of the Galaxy Police, please state your name and intentions.” the captain said as the screen began to display two figures, one was covered in armor the body shape though matched the natives of the area, the other was a bipedal of an unknown race.
“Captain Durin, I am Crown Prince Nuada Lugh of the Equestria Kingdom on the planet Harmony. I have reason to believe you have trespassed on my lands and taken a criminal with you who was serving a sentence for damages to said land.” the bipedal said.
“Which criminal do you speak of?” the captain asked.
“First Class Detective Bestla. She was being held until a trial for the damages done to my lands and endangerment of my citizens could be performed.” Nuada said cooly.
“Nuada?” Bestla asked as she saw a group of officers escorting the tall hairless creature she had been cohabitating with.
“Silence Criminal, I am merely here to make sure you serve your sentence under proper supervision.”