//------------------------------//
// Terrification 
// Story: Crashland:  Equestria 
// by computerneek 
//------------------------------//

This one, the Guards didn’t dare get close.  They’re all pegasi; they could feel the truly immense wind currents whirling around each of the four strange things holding it up, unlike the two little, strange things that held the last one up.

And one doesn’t have to be a pegasus to see the way the foliage is rippling away from it, fully three hundred feet below.  Or, for that matter, the heat waves in the air beneath it, despite the hint of snow in the air.

This doesn’t even count, as it gets close to the investigation site, how the unicorns tried scanning it- and reported that their spells seemed to be simply bouncing off.

Of course, Celestia was alerted- though, she was already on her way.  Unlike the last one, this one made no effort to hide its approach, though it did approach from the far side of the mountain as Canterlot, keeping its approach hidden from most of the residents therein.

Princess Celestia and her Guards watch as it nears the angled terrain next to the giant spear.  Whereas that smaller one might have been able to perch itself on one of the flatter spots, as they’d expected it to do, this thing is simply too big for that- so they expect it to just hover, like the first did.

However, to their utmost horror, it doesn’t seem content with their expectations.  After taking a hover some three pony-heights above the ground, some kind of beam shoots down from the bottom of it- and the ground moves.  Mere moments later, when the beam disappears, a rectangular patch of ground at least twice the size of the machine and directly below it is perfectly flat- and level, to boot.  Additionally, the truly massive mana surge that beam brought has simply disappeared- completely tracelessly.

Not that the unicorns have stopped screaming.

As a matter of fact, the only pony left on the peak that happened to be both in possession of a horn and not screaming her head off would be Princess Celestia herself- and even she almost screamed.

The massive flying machine, showing total disregard for the panicked screams, descends smoothly, landing on four legs that emerged from its smooth underside.

Then all the wind dies down to nothing all of the sudden, the four strange things that had been holding it up tilting forwards to a horizontal position.  This itself brought more screams- but nopony got sucked in, so those screams disappear fairly quickly.

Then a little door on its side, just a little behind one of the massive lift things, pops open, a staircase unfolding to the ground below, and a brown-coated mare with no cutie mark trots down it.  She pauses to bow to Princess Celestia, and says something incomprehensible.





She smiles apologetically at all of the ponies she can see while she trots down the stairs from one of Athena’s combat dropships.  She hadn’t wanted to take the outsized assault shuttle to her second meeting with what she hopes will be a friendly head of state; unfortunately, it was the only small craft in any of the bays equipped with its own rift engine.  It’s not nearly as powerful as her ship’s engines, though- and, for that matter, reliant upon a live feed from her ship’s rift engine to remain operational.

But regardless, that means this shuttle was the only thing she could bring out here that would be equipped with rift sensors.  That it had a terraforming device built-in…  Well, had she known it would terrify the natives, she wouldn’t have used it.

She does find it amusing how only the ones with horns seem to be absolutely terrified.  The rest just seem more just frightened, as she might have been, had she witnessed the Mark IV High-Speed Rift Terraformer in action without knowing a thing about it ahead of time.

At least the pony she suspects is their ruler isn’t screaming her head off; at least some of the white pony’s attention still seems to be available.  As she reaches the bottom of the steps, the shutdown procedure on the shuttle’s atmospheric engines coming smoothly to a stop, she turns to this strange mare and bows, and speaks.  “I apologize for the scare,” she begins.  “I didn’t know the terraformer would be a terrifier.”

The white mare’s horn glows briefly- and, exactly as she’d expected, she loses connection from her auxiliary, which collapses on the ground.

But this time, not only has she got full sensor scans of the entire event, she’s also got a dozen additional auxiliaries on hand- or is it hoof?- in the stasis pods she’d had crammed into the passenger bay.

So, while her ship analyzes the sensor results and simultaneously battles to reconnect that one auxiliary, she wakes in another one and pops the hatch again.  Of course, the stairs had not retracted, so that, at least, is a non-issue.

She hopes to show these ponies that whatever their leader is doing isn’t killing her.

And besides- after just a few seconds of analysis and battling, her ship has been able to stabilize the disabled auxiliary- returning it to the ‘unassigned’ status they have when freshly produced.  It won’t survive there for long- only about three hours- without the support built into the ‘auxiliary chambers’ they’re made in, but if she makes physical contact with it, she should be able to wake it right back up again.





Nopony moves.

Most have them have just become witness to an occurrence that nopony is normally privy to.

That is, Princess Celestia herself…  cussed.

The strange, brown mare comes trotting out of her strange machine again…  even though she’s still lying on the ground.  A few ponies move now, looking back and forth between the two.  The two mares look exactly identical, all the way down to the missing cutie mark.

The new one casually trots up next to the first, reaching out a hoof to touch it.  After a second’s touch, she withdraws her hoof, and bows down to Celestia- while the first wakes back up, returning to do the same.

Most ponies present, including all those in the medical profession and Princess Celestia herself, faint.

The two mares look around, seemingly amused, before one of them trots off to the side someplace, looking up and down the giant spear.





Well, she considers, at least something good actually did come of my noisy approach:  The drive zones are clear.