Untouched by Human Hands

by Acmos


Survivor Type - 1

It was the eighteenth of Sweltember, and the day was drawing to a close. The sky was cloudless in summer. Ponyville weather brigade worked out their budget conscientiously, not even knowing that a whole princess would come to visit them. Only a couple of mischievous curly clouds drifted away somewhere behind the hills, driven by a warm wind... The air was filled with the breath of spruce and oak groves and there was no need to filter it with spells, as in the industrial districts of Trottingham. The rains, silvery meadow grasses with dew, were pure in the true, not factory-Cloudsdale sense, and that purity could be tasted with its refreshing coolness. The lands near the Eternal One, this great source of free magic, only intensified the feeling of unity with nature, so that the local hills and fields did not know peace from the prolific life... It seemed that one could lie down on the lush grass and do absolutely nothing, until the end of time enjoying this splendor.

Celestia loved being here in Ponyville, which invariably awakened in her soul a song of nostalgia for the good old days. Then, after a series of Dark Years and the establishment of true Harmony, many ponies left their homes to find refuge in the sunny and welcoming lands. Founded by the Smith clan many years later, and then inhabited by other venerable families, the town was the embodiment of serenity and simple happiness. Everything here exuded optimism. There were no herds of carriages and office clerks in these parts, always in a hurry about their business and, it seemed, did not notice all the white light around, like on Mainhattan. The cheerful bustle and pandemonium of Las Pegasus, noisy and satiated, did not circle around. The inflated dandies and rakes from among the unicorn aristocracy did not turn up their noses, the theoreticians and practitioners of magic did not gather their gloomy professional councils in order to discuss questions of materialism, transfiguration and chronological existence for hours on end. If it were not for the responsibility to her little ponies and the affairs of the state, the diarch would gladly spend a vacation in this wonderful place...

Well, here you are not enveloped in a suppressive-magic cocoon just because you wanted so much for your niece in order to have a fun wedding, Celestia smiled to herself as the pegasus in her harness began to descend over the city. Friendship, seemingly invisible bonds, united the whole of Ponyville. In the darkest days, the inhabitants did not leave their neighbors alone, invariably supporting each other, and again the carefree laughter and music of Harmony flew upward, destroying the discord.

It smelled of apples and coniferous forests, rye and hay, sweets. Here lived pretty filly and glorious stallions, cheerful and hard-working, who knew better than anyone that there is no grief-reliever better than a helping hoof given to another pony. Celestia is not the only one who would like days in such an atmosphere of exceptional comfort to last as long as possible. If it were not for respect for her sister and the established order, which was only violated by the reincarnation of Nightmare, Celestia could have postponed the sunset, giving all sentient ponies here a little more time to raise their mental tone and just have fun.

However, today the Equestrian mistress could delay the onset of darkness not out of personal preference, but because of the notorious responsibility. In the dark, as you know, it is much easier to bury everything gray, unknown and possibly dangerous... And in Ponyville This time the princess of the Day was brought not by the cake baking and their signature brewing, but by something more serious. The sensitive scent of the alicorn, on approaching, felt the tart smell of burning - not too strong, but alarming in its own way. And the town itself, floating under the carriage, looked unusual: rare ponies moved in short dashes only to dive into the house and close the door tightly behind them. The shops lowered their windows, the stalls were locked up everywhere, the foals with their ringing laughter and games were not at all visible, the songbirds, it seemed, had fallen silent, fearfully crouching in the tops of the trees. Run through the stirrup street tumbleweed, and pure Fillidelphia from the times of the invasion of parasprites there will come out. The only thing missing is the croaking strumming of an Appllusian guitar, the disturbing play of a harmonica and the rhythmic beat of hooves to complete the picture...

This is not to say that Celestia did not approve of such measures. Moreover, Lieutenant Pin Spare certainly did not give the impression of a green recruit who needs the slightest excuse to play the war.

The emergence from another world of a flying machine with a creature that managed to survive the crash of this machine without any magic and give her a break was reason enough to shift all urgent matters to her sister Luna, who was still asleep, grumbling. Celestia couldn't help but smile as she remembered the look on her face when her sister threw a stack of documents and letters onto her bedside table and declared, "I'll definitely get some fruit for you on my way back!" and gracefully dodging the telekinesis-thrown pillow. Such exquisite experience has been cultivated over the centuries of their sistership... Anyway, Celestia began to prepare for an urgent visit to Ponyville.

The princess saw fit to bring several squads of guards with her, in addition to the fact that Twilight had to support - if not for safety, then for the peace of the people of Ponyville. They all landed in the market square, as deserted and devoid of the usual bustle. While the unicorns and the pegasus carrying them briskly lined up in boxes and listened to the captain's directions, Celestia spoke with a local government official.

Madame Mayor sadly assured her that the city would be able to handle the next troubles on its own, without distracting the diarch from matters that were undoubtedly much more important, but Celestia allayed her concern with a few general phrases. In the end, Twilight was the crown's personal apprentice, and Celestia herself approved of the ritual, and therefore had to make sure everything went smoothly. Well, or, as now, eliminate the consequences and minimize the negative reaction of the subjects ...

Madame Mayor went with a messenger to the town hall, and as soon as the guardsmen briefly reported "Roger that, Your Highness", scattered among the patrols, including air, Celestia, along with Shining Armor, walked past the tents to the range. The turquoise of the warding sphere was still visible from afar, but Celestia's eyes were invariably attracted by the confectionery signs, including rustic flower cakes. True, enterprising merchants fled at the time of the crash of the rotary-wing ship, and together with all their goods ...

Celestia sighed, spreading her wings and furtively looking to see if she had put on a couple of extra pounds. True, the pastries and the fruits of the labor of their little subjects, which Luna loved so much, will wait. Business comes first. Accompanied by a pensive captain, the princess went to the crash site, beyond which began a vast meadow and thicket. Stopped by the protective shield of the unicorns and covered with a sphere, the rotorcraft still remained a black, smoking trail on the ground, while at the same time it made the surrounding grass smolder, which had already been reliably extinguished and was only peacefully smoking, spreading the smell of burning and wet steam.

The machine itself was a pile of wreckage; the wings and propellers were broken, and the hull was crumpled, bursting in places, so that the rotorcraft turned into a twisted heap of metal. It didn’t at all resemble the pedal-powered aeronautics that unicorns and earth ponies sometimes used to visit Cloudsdale — it was a grim mass, and the jagged edges of the metal, like jagged teeth, only intensified the rejection. A grotesque sight that did not fit into the pastoral rural landscape at all...

Twilight at the dome almost jumped with impatience, apparently noticing the crews that had flown in through the air, and she was ready to rush towards Princess Celestia, but it was beyond her strength to escape the readings of the sensors.

Then she saw her brother: "Shining!" exclaimed the unicorn. "Are you here too?"

“Hello, Twiley,” the captain of the guard hugged her, removing his helmet and smiling cheerfully. “As I see, you don't get bored here... Maybe this is such a property of your friendly company? As soon as you arrive at the palace, everyone gets up and everything flies around!”

“Yeeeeeeeee! The big kind captain is with us again!” Pinky shouted, unexpectedly jumping up the unicorn on a wide back, clad in armor, and starting to jump happily on it. “Now we will catch this little coward in no time, feed him a sweet pie for courage and give him a party in honor of his arrival in Equestria! How is Princess Mi Amore doing in marriage? Oh, and hello to you, Princess!”

“Princess!” gasped Twilight, as if remembering something very important. She instantly wrenched herself out of her brother's arms and rushed to her mentor. “I really really didn't want it to work out like this! I really didn't think that...

“I believe, my dear student,” Celestia replied softly.

An exchange of pleasantries followed, Twilight's best friends included, as each of them expressed their respect to the diarch with their own brands of affection. The princess liked these ponies, as they did not look for benefits for themselves in friendship with Celestia's student and did not try to fake their feelings in order to attract royal attention to themselves. Well, apart from that harmless and mostly unworthy of attention scuffle over a ticket to the Gala... The fact that the little talented recluse has a circle of acquaintances who are always ready to help and share their opinions with Twilight, no matter how far away her mentor was, warmed Celestia's heart. There were also non-ponies in there: Spike, who was sitting on a box of magocapacitors, had established friendly relations with the nerdy unicorn since childhood. Owlowiscious, Twilight's pet, in turn, hooted politely from the top of the reciever antenna.

Lieutenant Spare, who was calmly waiting for the greeting session to be over, saluted as soon as Celestia turned to him, after she finished discussing the taken safety measures with Twilight.

“Your Mightiness. Captain,” he saluted Shining already, looking with some surprise at Pinky, who sat on his back, to whom the guardsman for some reason let go of such liberties.

"Lieutenant, you set a curfew as soon as the creature escaped from the dome?" Celestia asked. "There were reasons for that? Frankly speaking, from the letter of my student, I could not decide that Ponyville so immediately needs restrictive measures..."

Noticing that Pin Spare was embarrassed, obviously starting to go over his own actions in his mind for their correctness, the Princess of the Day calmly added:

“Nobody blames you, I just ask you to allow my own ignorance. While there were arguments and gatherings in Canterlot, I received a second letter from Twilight, but it only spoke about the nature of the machine and some essays about this creature from another dimension. You also found footprints that led to the forest... Something happened that I did not take into account?”

“While you were on your way, Your Grace,” the lieutenant nodded, “we actually found the place where the creature came to the surface of the earth. Quite on the edge of the forest, so there was no need to think too much... In addition, Miss Fluttershy reported that one of her singing acquaintances saw an alien in the ravines by the river, hiding his things. Surely he picked them up among the wreckage of the car... We, of course, then checked, but apart from his traces there was nothing there.”

The pink-haired pegasus nodded somewhat embarrassedly and, turning to the nearest bushes, whistled. A bird immediately fluttered out of there and settled on its head, its screaming yellow plumage harmoniously combining with the delicate shade of Fluttershy's fur. A little cautiously, the birdie glanced at Owlowiscious, but the latter merely lifted his bushy eyebrows and sank into slumber again. Spike barely stifled a yawn, releasing tongues of green flame from her nostrils, and Applejack pushed her hat over her eyes, melancholy chewing on a blade of grass and blinking sleepily; today, rich in out-of-bounds events, has definitely worn out the Ponyville dwellers. Except, perhaps, Rainbow Dash - that intrusion into the measured rural life of an alien from other worlds was perceived as a long-awaited adventure, judging by the wide grin.

The bird chirped something in its own language, after which Fluttershy nodded and addressed the princess: "Princess. Chuck told me that the first time ... this two-legged creature was worried. It did not know where to go ... it seemed that he was about to run in a panic in circles. And after his appearance, Chuck flew to a very loud crackling in the forest and howling of tree wolves ... Other forest dwellers said that he was already moving purposefully, as if he knew exactly where to go. He has entered deep into the Ever-Free Forest!" Fluttershy winced, but then looked at Celestia with a kind of hidden determination. Exhaling as if gaining strength, the beast-lover spoke quickly: “Princess, we must help him! He is harmless, just scared and does not know how to behave... He did not harm anyone, even just ran away from Rainbow! If he chose to meet with the inhabitants Ever-Free Forest. One, he probably does not understand us at all. It is necessary to somehow show that the ponies are not his enemies!”

Celestia saw perfectly well that the pegasus of the kindest soul was not afraid of a mysterious stranger, whom she did not even have a chance to see, and not that the ponies around were agitated, but the uncertainty and chaos of the Ever-Free Forest. And also the fact that someone's life in his thicket could be endangered. Even if it was a strange, lanky, alien like no one else. If anyone should have been entrusted with the fate of Discord, to show him that life is not only eternal fooling around and pranks, from harmless to rather evil, and to convince him to moderate his ardor, then only Fluttershy. The problem was not the chaos itself, but its excess. With too much order, even such a wonderful place as Equestria will turn into a quagmire of inexpressiveness and laziness, boring, like an evening at the next Gala. Without a bit of chaos, there is no place for the birth of new phenomena - in chaos, as the clearest example of this, life was born. Fluttershy, on the other hand, could well go beyond the generally accepted framework, accept and understand someone who violates the established order of ponies and does not see anything wrong with it; the element, which Harmony chose her to incarnate, spoke for itself...

Judging by the frowning of her eyebrows, Twilight was fundamentally disagreeing with her friend. And she did not fail to voice her own position: “Fluttershy, you seriously?” Twilight said skeptically. “Harmless? It seems to me that "harmlessness" is not the thing that magoevolution develops in parallel with the ability to survive with the most severe bodily injuries and the speed available only to the best of the prize racerunner!”

“That's right, dear! Moreover, it went underground like an iron through folds of fabric, and underground creatures... fi, they are still rude ones, just like their element!” Rarity snorted, remembering something with an expression of obvious disgust on her face.

“N-no… I meant that…” Fluttershy quickly retreated, her cheeks pinkish desperately. “I didn't want to, if that!”

“Rara, Twi, stop pushing!” stood up for her friend Rainbow, flying closer. “Maybe he is something like a giant upright turtle, all the same in armor except for the head was chained! Tank won just like that you can't get it, with his shell, and he won't hurt a fly! True, for a turtle, this two-legged one has gotten too fast...”

“Oh! What if he's actually a highly organized parasprite, thrown towards us in order to reduce the Equestrian strategic stocks of cakes and marshmallows?!” The pink pony chef jumped up in horror on Shining's back at once. “Horrible! I urgently need to check...”

“It’s unlikely, sugar,” the farmer besieged her with true phlegmatism, spitting out a blade of grass. As often happened, she listened more than she spoke, and if she wanted to intervene, she expressed herself strictly to the point. Trouble in Ponyville because of another Twilight experiment? Just think... Not the first time, ponies will cope with everything if they put in a little more effort than usual. Applejack paused and explained to the audience: “I trained Winona on these scoundrels so that it would be discouraging for them to meddle on the farm. She didn't smell anything, so everything is fine. Not a parasprite, whatever it is.”

“Ah, well then, good!” instantly perked up pink bouncy. “I already thought that my tail does "vzhzhzhzh" and "derg" because this alien decided to rob Sugar Corner and take out all our supplies, making the simplest saline solution from sugar and immediately using it! Probably the tail is just happy that we are all here today!”

“Pinky, I don’t mind trusting your instinct, especially after how many times it has helped us out… but what weirdo needs your entire assortment?!” Twilight wondered. “It will burst in the most natural way!”

“Maybe these otherworldly aliens have a very good appetite, and their grannies are the happiest grannies in the world!” Pinkie Pie said instructively. “Imagine: grandsons always eat porridge to the end!”

“Often - along with the plates...” snorted the dragon, for which the assimilation of inorganics was a matter of habit.

“... and grannies!” the air gymnast burst out laughing, in whose vision the picture of the otherworldly meal seemed to come out hilarious.

“Rainbow!” the yellow pegasus was horrified. “Shame on you, it's not funny!”

“It's okay, Fluttershy,” Celestia thought it necessary to continue with a chuckle. “My little pony, did you say something about the alien escaping from Rainbow Dash?”

“Ah... this?” the pegasus flapped its wing, letting go of the bird, and that with a cheerful chirp flew away towards the forest, getting ready for bed. “M-maybe the lieutenant will tell you about this further?” the begging-shy expression on Fluttershy's face would not leave anyone indifferent. “Please..?”

Naturally, Celestia had already turned to Pin Spare. It was not with pincers that they had to pull from Fluttershy word by word, when she had already reached the ceiling of determination and said everything that she considered necessary to report to the guards? The last thing Celestia was going to do in this life was to abuse the psyche of her little subjects...

With a nod, the lieutenant began to present a short excerpt: “Be that as it may, Your Grace, after arranging his things in the ravine, the creature returned. Miss Fluttershy, thanks to the birds, found out that it carried with it a device vaguely similar to those that were attached to the crashed rotorcraft, only a reduced resemblance. We assumed that the creature could return to the car for something else, so we set up a guard. Two guards, sent together with Spare to watch the ritual, agreed to hit the shafts of their spears against each other. We hoped to manage only by attracting the weather brigade and alerting the residents... However, the creature, apparently, caught sight of the guards and did not contact us. It only used her stealth skills to spy on the inhabitants of Ponyville.”

“I told you, Dash.” Twilight said quietly but reproachfully. “You have to be more cunning! If you pretended not to notice him, you could tell the weather brigade and take it together... You could finally tell me, and I would immediately teleport there, enclose the area in a protective sphere!”

“Twilight!” Fluttershy protested. “You can't just shut down living beings in the spheres! He hasn't done anything bad to us!”

“If he doesn’t realize that he cannot survive in a world with a different percolation matrix without our help, then it’s better that way!” anxiously bit the lip of the unicorn. She, too, was definitely worried (albeit in a different vein) that a stranger, pulled out of her homeworld through her fault, could die here. “And in general, this is all in the name of science! When else will there be a chance to establish contact with a representative of a technically advanced civilization? Maybe the two-legged with his machines will do just fine without us and will be lost forever in Equestria! Catch him later...”

“Always you, Twi, in your nerdy style you think to turn everything.” Muttered Rainbow Dash, but somehow without a fuse, as if admitting partly her puncture. “Where is all the fun? Did you really think that I, the coolest pegasus in Equestria, wouldn't want to compete with a new kid? If not to blow it up, then at least in terms of speed? There they.” Rainbow waved vaguely towards the protective dome. “Should definitely know a lot about entertainment, since a stranger rushed so easily after he was supposed to break into a cake! Can't you see it from that angle? All you have is some kind of digital literacy, squiggles...”

“No!” Celestia's student shook her head vigorously. “I never wanted to drive at crazy speeds and fight! With very, very, very rare exceptions!”

“That’s your problem.” Pegasus said authoritatively. “If you suddenly acquire wings, you will sing in a different way! And a stranger, bless you, took the acceleration when he tried to break away from me, yes, only the flanks sparkled!” Rainbow snorted with laughter, throwing back the swirls of her bright rainbow mane. “Runs for the ground with stunned what a decent speed! If nature did not deprive him of his endurance either, he would take the first prize in the Autumn Race for sure!” stopped short and realizing that this could belittle her own achievements, Dash instantly changed her tone from enthusiastic to patronizingly indifferent: “Well, while I'm in the air, this cornstalk definitely has no chance! So we'll see who wins.”

“Rainbow Dash, do not try to climb to him again!” Twilight exclaimed angrily. “And if he again deliberately swoops in on you, and you do not have time to dodge? We still don't know how he thinks and what he thinks! Don't make sudden mistakes, please!”

“Don't make mistakes?!” Rainbow chuckled. “Excellent advice for those who are not afraid of mistakes, Twi! This is all nonsense, he was not going to ram me! He saw perfectly well that I could fly around him once or twice, that at any moment I could jump to the side, so he just took it weakly.”

"Oh ya? It turns out that our brave Rainbow Dash gave it to some stranger weakly?" Applejack said with a smirk on her face.

"Ummm... Yes, this fool himself could not have walked away!" Rainbow immediately denied it, looking at the earth pony with ill-concealed discontent. “I really did him a favor! If he crashed into me, he would face the uncontrollable blow of my strong wings, and he would be bad! What will the other ponies think? He just raced like a wild mustang, and then fell off some friendly poke! The first impression, most importantly, could not be taken for some kind of weakness! How else to dissolve all this diplomacy of yours?!" Rainbow ruffled the fur on her chest and placed her front hooves at her sides as if she were about to defend her position.

"How interesting..." Said the local trendsetter, and playfully blinked her eyelashes. “But nevertheless, my dear Rainbow, if all this were only part of the performance, so that this ... creature would not crash its muzzle into the dirt in front of us, why would you fly back in maximum excitement? And while everyone heard you shouting: "I was almost knocked off my feet by a hefty alien!" and "Have you seen how he runs, just amazing?"

“Khe! Rarity!” Сhoking with indignation, the sports pony soared into the air. “You are not helping!”

The Princess of the Day received the lieutenant's report, while listening to the friendly squabble with sincere amusement. Messengers from the Cakes brought pastries and tea, medium infusion, with hints of prunes; to taste, well, in no way comparable to the variety that was served to Celestia in the palace, but possessing this wonderful zest of simplicity. Everything got better with a cup of such a truly divine brew... and a piece of cake.

In general, the diarch got an idea of ​​the situation: in her vision, the alien turned out to be too strong and self-sufficient to accept the hoof of help and regard the other sentient ones around him as the only ones who can save his life. Then, bewildered, he wanted to find out at least something about the place in which he found himself, and moved to Ponyville, but there Rainbow Dash frightened him off with her overwhelming pressure... that all this confusion would soon settle down and end in peace... There was, however, a lot of incomprehensible things in this story. And Celestia had no choice but to build versions until this two-legged man was able to talk. How did he turn out to be the point of application of the ritual, and even on a complex, physically vulnerable aeronautical apparatus, and why was this case the last in the history of that world? Why did the stranger go into the wild forest so easily? Did he have everything he needed to survive in this unadapted world for him? Finally, what will be the reaction of the two-legged to the fact that he will no longer go back, as they did not want to take Twilight's diplomatic greeting to the other side?

The last question was especially acute for Celestia. In the actions of her student, undoubtedly, there was no malice, but the very fact that Twilight Sparkle pulled out from another world an intelligent creature, who did not count on it at all, could not have the best influence on the sensitive unicorn. So far, Twilight's thoughts were undoubtedly centered around the very fact of a successful ritual; the perspectives he could open and the challenges that a stranger could throw down to her intellect. But what will happen then when the filly considers the ethical side in millet, will see in what happened the responsibility for someone else's ruined life, albeit in a lightened form?

It would be an important life lesson that Celestia hoped Twilight would have a long way to go... After the wedding in Canterlot, the princess apologized to her student, whose arguments she so lightly dismissed, counting on the protection of the capital. The unknown, capable of hiding right next to you, turned out to be a hundred times more dangerous than the many threats that Celestia faced during her long reign...

After exchanging assurances of mutual trust, Twilight showed nothing that she began to value her mentor less: she still shared her thoughts and talked in letters about what she's been doing this week. The ritual of inter-world travel captured the whole unicorn, and Celestia felt in the messages, usual for Sparkle in such cases, the tension of the task, the inspiration. It was hoped that Twilight this time too would not accumulate a burden of heavy thoughts in his soul until it ended with something unpleasant, but would turn to Celestia for advice... after all, today she notified the mentor immediately. Good sign.

“We also believe, Your Grace, that the creature cannot be detected by standard spellcasting techniques, just as its crew was not enchanted by Miss Twilight's enhanced levitation matrix.” Pin Spare continued, meanwhile. “On our second escape from Ponyville, we threw a couple of standard paralysis and recognition spells after him, but none of them even noticed him. The creature is capable of changing its outer coverings in an unspecified range, but definitely with great speed; they were removed under the armor in a matter of a couple of moments.” As if apologizing, the lieutenant added: “And it does it quite naturally, Your Grace. Miss Rainbow recognized his disguise only when the stranger moved, and there is no doubt about the vigilance of the eyes of the leader of the local weather brigade.” Rainbow proudly put her hooves on her hips when she heard these praise words addressed to her, but Spare had already moved away from the topic: “He recreated unfamiliar vegetation with great accuracy. The color and texture were completely consistent with the original ... We think that a foreigner is able to recreate the appearance of other objects if his transformation is based only on visual similarity. Perhaps the looks of other ponies too," The officer finished his report.

Celestia nearly choked on a piece of cake. Shining Armor, who still had fresh memories of his own wedding, reacted in a similar vein, although he spent most of it in an enchanted state. The rest of the ponies also began to suspect something...

“Only alien changelings we lacked, which cannot be detected by conventional methods!” The captain of the guard finally squeezed out. “If so, then every boulder, every stump of suspects can be recorded! Pinky, please get down, you will flatten me...”

“And I do not lean on baked goods at all!” the pink pony stuck out her tongue, but she jumped off Shining's back. “I am light as a feather!”

Considering that Pinky could ride like a mountain goat, it was hard not to believe her. Celestia chewed a piece of cake on the machine and washed it down with a good sip of tea, then refilled her cup. Spare, realizing that things could turn out to be a little worse than expected, went into detailed explanations - what, where, when and how, and why Pinkie gave him the whole story about Zekora, who had a couple of biscuits and a balloon wrapped in Sugar Corner in the morning. Celestia sipped her drink slowly, hoping that her favorite flavor and aroma would drive away the disturbing thoughts. Without magic, a foreigner could not be a changeling, of course, but the very fact of controlling his appearance opened up many... probable threats to Celestia. And if you add to this unconditional stamina and physical strength, if his car did not have some incredible means of rescue in an accident, then... Judging by the conversation of other ponies, not all of them were worried that the alien might turn out to be something like a werewolf stealing love...

Fluttershy shyly assumed that a stranger without magic could disguise himself in the image and likeness of a chameleon, and these reptiles have always been distinguished by a meek disposition. Rainbow Dash was delighted at all: even though the creature did not look like a beetle, now the pegasus had an excellent reason to blow it up and, thus, measure its strength. Twilight recklessly argued with Rarity, who had gone into quiet panic, making up arguments on the go why the alien, although he towered over ordinary ponies as much as a whole height, could not be the alien Queen of the changelings, just as he did not resemble an ordinary individual. Applejack, despite her drowsiness, with all her appearance showed confidence in herself and her allies - where is the alien to the fortitude of the earth ponies and the harmony of the Ponyville in general. And Pinkie Pie... well, she was just Pinky. Celestia's view of the situation with the everlasting spirits of the pastry chef, of course, could not coincide, despite the solidarity in the same plan of love for baking.

“Twilight, be so kind.” after thinking a little more and, finally, putting the cup on bottom, turned to the student Celestia. “Remove the barrier.”

“O-of course, princess...” Twilight responded a little nervously. “I didn’t try to disassemble this jumble before your arrival… There… do you understand?”

“I know, my little pony.” Celestia smiled affectionately. “Don't worry, this... This mess won't affect me in any way.”

“Are you sure, Your Grace?” Pin Spare snapped up immediately. “We scanned everything. Nothing that could pose a threat, no toxic substances that could react, but still...”

“It's all right, Lieutenant. I just need to check something out personally.” Celestia muttered as Twilight swirled the removal matrix quickly. Okay, Tia, it's time to shake things up and revive some experimental magic techniques for a change. Let's hope that Swirl's apprenticeship was not in vain, the princess sighed to herself. Twilight, the rarest fusion of intelligence and kindness, the most talented young sorceress that Celestia has ever met, did a good job on the machine... For example, she established with the help of an independently developed flux crusher that the body of the device from the point of view of magic was rather a non-metal with an admixture of magnesium, although physically showed the properties of the best steel. Celestia wanted to look at the crash site from her own thousands of years of experience, believing that some of the details the unicorn simply did not consider outstanding. In the end, Celestia would always have time to turn to Neighsay and his moth-touched singers, as well as other Canterlot wiseacres, if openness and friendliness suddenly fail, and outrageous conservatism mixed with paranoia is needed.

Using sections of her own protective barriers, Princess Celestia slowly, with a terrible grinding, parted the collapsed body. She paid a little attention to all kinds of wreckage that the guards had piled up next to it, outside the dome. Details of the machine from the impact were scattered over a large area, fortunately uninhabited. Tubes with numerous holes and intricate objects with curved metal rods sticking out of them were attached to the small wings of this metal alien object, half submerged in the ground. Pulling aside the door that seemed to lead into the rotorcraft cockpit, Celestia wrinkled her nose in a far from regal gesture as she, protected by a pair of tension spells, puffed out clouds of smoke from the wires still smoldering in the interior of the this is an unknown flying vehicle. Then the Equestrian mistress became almost ill at all: blots of sintered blood blackened all over the cabin. There was no doubt that any living creature without magical shielding, if it were here at the moment of its fall, would turn into shapeless, metal-torn remains.

Celestia could not help imagining how the pungent smoke from electronics that did not use enchanted circuits, and therefore much more demanding and sophisticated, filled the lungs of the alien; how he twitches, crippled and still does not understand why his car so suddenly collapsed to the ground, spinning around its axis. How blood spurts from terrible wounds, pouring over the instruments, how the nauseating smell of burning flesh spreads around...

For a moment it seemed Celestia that she would lose consciousness from a long-forgotten feeling of disgust. Whole generations grew up in Harmony, ordinary ponies have even lost the habit of, if not any, then most of the manifestations of troubles, which with such a crushing effort could crush the life of a rational person... turn the highest values ​​into nothing. Neither Twilight nor the others should have dealt with such a thing.

Celestia exhaled slowly and forced herself to look again at the bloody footprints. Having created a diagnostic spell of her own invention, after the invasion of the changelings, modified in order, the princess found out the reason why the attachment to ordinary organic matter did not work on a stranger.

The alien turned out to be a magnesium-based life form, the very one that Twilight recognized as an additive to a "non-metallic" metal from another world. But that wasn't even what caught Celestia's attention. The organic matter in his blood simply... collapsed. His blood did not clot under the action of enzymes, but seemed to be rotten to its core. All complex organic compounds have turned into scraps of molecules, meaningless rubbish. This... this led to some disturbing thoughts, in particular about the long and firmly forgotten (so she and her sister tried) the art of necromancy. One got the impression that the alien did not want to leave traces behind him, by which it was possible to find him, and for this he gave the order to his body as others possess the mind... His disguise could well fit into this concept.

Taking a sample and destroying other traces of otherworldly blood, Celestia backed away from the rotorcraft, carefully stepping through the wreckage. With the same protective stripes, the diarch separated the smaller crippled device from the wing of the car and, covering it with barriers, carefully began to disassemble, opening the seams and twisting the screws. Twilight watched her mentor's actions without stopping, almost gasping; others on they simply did not know how to react to this act of regal vandalism. Soon, Celestia was able to isolate the component that interested her: a ribbon made up of many scaly segments unwound on the golden edges of the force shield.

Having extracted from one such cylinder, made with the same alien metal, Celestia levitated it by the sharp tip and called Shining Armor: “Captain. Please come here.”

He immediately approached the princess, putting on a helmet just in case. Looking sideways at the alicorn's manipulations in bewilderment, Cadence's husband recalled his presence: “Your Mightiness?”

“I could be wrong, Shining, but this machine was fitted with some sort of self-loading stinging jets.” Celestia said quietly, watching the cylinder unfold in weaving of screens, shedding a thin shell, exposing the powdery contents and an upper nucleolus that resembled a rounded arrowhead. “I would like all guards to be familiar with their history, in particular information on how to defend against them.”

Twilight’s brother pondered, apparently recalling his lessons at the Canterlot Military Academy, then apologetically announced: “Your Grace, but this is a very old weapon... Historians know that the process of alchemical release of energy, which gave the sting speed, was developed by earth ponies even before the unification of the tribes! And with the founding of Equestria, with the massive use of non-lethal homing spells and other long-range controls, the stingers lost even the little relevance that they had! The massive enchantment of the armor of their earth ponies, winged comrades by unicorns put an end to the developments of the Dark Ages completely... Really, otherworldly aliens, with such an impressive flying technique, have not yet passed a similar period of history?”

“Not really, Captain,” Celestia sighed. “I'm afraid that world is not able to get out of that state, because there is simply no magic in it. This weapon, and that it is a weapon, I have less and less doubts - is made of materials not affected by magic in any way. But besides, it, like the flying machine itself, looks as if the most precise methods were used in its creation. Not at all like those crude crafts made by the tribes of the Strife, is it?”

Shining Armor nodded in concern, and Celestia thought that since such complex rotorcraft were allowed to exist in the creature's homeworld, they probably weren't something out of the ordinary. Moreover, technology could lead aliens beyond much more distant horizons than the imagination of Equestrians allowed... Although, undoubtedly, without magic, their capabilities were seriously limited.

Nodding to herself, Celestia finished slowly, “You can't build such a machine and a weapon for it on a one-off basis... Without magic, otherworldly this species would need mass production tailored to the needs of the military industry, and thousands of intelligent aliens attracted to it. Perhaps that world is a rather... warlike place.”

“I see, Your Grace. Limited resources.” Shining grimaced. “If they do not have magic, then the crops are left at the mercy of the vagaries of the weather and pests. If there is no magic that makes life easier, and these machines take a lot of time and money, it will be much easier to select the finished one! Moreover, their innate impenetrability, speed and strength... With such an arrangement it is not a sin to fight...” Shining with an extremely serious expression on its face looked at the Lady of the Sun. “Your Grace, what are the recommendations for the guards?”

Celestia scanned the Ponyville houses that were so close to the creation of a possibly inhospitable and bitter world. Reporters have not yet spread all over the world where their beloved princess went, and local newspapers could well have limited themselves to a report in the spirit of "Twilight Sparkle again has something wrong with experiments, do not forget to take an umbrella with you in case of an unidentified flying object falling"... Still, Celestia did not see the need to escalate the situation yet. If she has learned anything from a long series of decades, it is that preventive measures inevitably carry more evil in themselves, after all, magic was able to cope with the widest range of consequences. It was not worth multiplying troubles for others without a serious need for that. The readiness to fight from the very beginning and the accumulation of forces for this will not force the reasonable to abandon aggressive plans, it will only provide them with zeal for even better preparation. And the alien, even if he came from a world without magic, tying many hands... well, he did not have time to leave a bad impression of himself; did not hint at all that he was going to apply his features with devastating consequences. Elements of Harmony, which were seen by many as a universal solution, could work on a representative of another world... radically.

Or it might not work at all. In a softening tone, Celestia replied to the captain of her guard: “We are still not under threat of invasion, Shining Armor. The creature is one, and it is not familiar with our world, in contrast to the same changelings. I think new instructions that were compiled with the expectation of counteracting them, will come in handy here. Unless...” Here Celestia looked at the crumpled cab of the car, smashed by a blow on a power barrier. “All the guards need to rely on protective penetrating screens. Levitation matrices, magic absorbers and other protective means against our new acquaintance will not work.”

“Got it, princess,” the senior guard saluted. “Allow go?”

“Of course, Captain,” Celestia replied with satisfaction.

Shining could be counted on, because what the princess of the Day asked him, the unicorn knew better than most. Not everyone can create a stable barrier that encircles the whole city... Shining Armor, gently nudging his sister with his shoulder and saying something like “Now we'll take care of everything, Twiley, don't worry about anything.” Shouted to the lieutenant: "Lieutenant Spare, in any case, I will be with Madame Mayor in the city hall! Now I will urge my guys on, and you can consider that the shift is over! They will put up a new shield, then you and your shift will go to rest."

“Wow, this is a great idea, Shini!” Pinky exclaimed, rolling up to Celestia like a pink bun and opening her puppy eyes at her. “Princess, we are all slightly stunned here from the concentration of events and want to go to rest! May we? Please-please-please!?”

Celestia gently ruffled the fidget mare's mane and said just as carefully: “Of course, Pinkie Pie. Go home, my little ponies, since we’ve got it all sorted out. Morning is wiser than evening."

“Yeeeee! Girls, how about a pajama party tomorrow afternoon? If the guards decide to keep us at home, there is no time to waste!”

“Princess, my equipment…” Twilight jerked, but Celestia reassured her that the instruments, along with the machine, would be under constant surveillance by the guards. The ponies began to disperse, yawning; got together with Sparkle and the dragon, but the princess delayed him a little.

“Thank you for convincing Twilight to contact me immediately, Spike,” the sun princess expressed her gratitude with a wink.

“But... but how you guessed, your...” he was surprised, although much less than when the diarch of all Equestria landed on the balcony of the library. Celestia smiled back.

“Shifting the magical problem, which is most problematic to cope with, on the mentor - it was not very typical for Twilight, was it?”

“Yes, I guess... I mean, nothing special, in general...” embarrassed, the dragon grumbled, after which he bowed briefly and began to catch up with Sparkle. “Well, I went!”

With a last nod to the lieutenant, Celestia stepped aside to set off the sunset. She stood on a meadow overgrown with tall grass and looked back - to where the Sun was leaning towards the horizon over the city, and where at the foot of Ponyville lay a sullen alien machine, poisoning the rural pastoral with a grotesque detail. Her tail with a second screw, broken but still protruding, pointed directly at the Everfree Forest, as if in an accusatory gesture.

Where are you, our mysterious two-legged guest? Celestia thought absently. Will Equestria bring new encounters and formations, knowledge and joy? Or will you become just one of many who vehemently denied Harmony, hindered its accession, were intolerant of the happiness of others? The princess of the day sighed, spreading her wings and going to appeal to the luminary, whose embodiment she had been revered for many centuries. Of course, she would like everything to be done in peace. But with this creature... for some reason it seemed to Celestia that everything would not be so simple here, not in the usual categories of good and bad.

“Tss! Your Mightiness…”

Suddenly, the alicorn's hearing caught familiar speech. Tilting her head, she saw someone's light yellow face, for some reason covered by a helmet with green streaks, and therefore faintly distinguishable in the grass. From the dark mane, pink and purple strands of which gathered into graceful curls, tufts of green stuck out. Glancing sideways at the guards at the crash site and noting that they only reacted to the princess buried in the grass with a puzzled shrug, Celestia peered at the stranger more closely. A rope with a grappling hook was tied around the filly's back, and a folding wand apparatus hung around her neck.

“Agent Drops?” the princess was seriously surprised. “I thought you resigned and left for Phyllidelphia! And why did you roll in the grass entirely?”

“To catch an object, I have to think like an object!” The earth pony proclaimed in a conspiratorial tone. “I have some information about the human that Twilight and her friendly company, I bet, did not notice!”

“Huma... about whom?” Celestia looked a little confused. The word to her, who still spoke with the speakers of the ancient Equestrian dialects, was familiar, but distorted by time until she almost completely misunderstood the subject that the word was supposed to mean.

“Oh, that's what my friend calls him, she once buzzed all my ears with her new hobby.” Sweetie Drops explained willingly. “Human” is a modified transcription of the old word form... There is something like “mastering the height”, “possessing power”, “striving upward” or simply “elongated”. Lyra has a whole science fiction club among her acquaintances. based on the idea of ​​the existence of alien species.” Pony winced as a blade of grass tickled her nose, and barely held back a sneeze. “But I doubt that apart from walking upright, our mutual acquaintance matches their fantasies. Lira generally likes to think that humans are a race of kind, intelligent species who carry ponies in their paws and look after their manes...”

“I feel you have something that makes you think the opposite, Agent Drops,” smiled the princess of the Day. “I'm all in attention. Share your valuable observations so that the guards do not waste time in vain? By the way, where did you get any information about the alien?”

The pony, beaming, stretched her hoof somewhere to the west of the crash site, “As soon as Twilight moved from theory to practice, I set up an observation post in the tree. Far from the landfill, but it was just right for surveillance on the sly! How I felt that something bad could get on our side...”

Celestia almost laughed when she imagined Agent Drops leaning out of the hollow of this very tree, clutching his binoculars and sticking out his tongue out of diligence, then screaming three times with a jay and hiding back. But she did not want to offend the brave little pony, which was always so serious about preserving the peace of the citizens, and who more than once hunted down monsters, which gave rise to the wild magic of Equestria. Some managed to pacify or tame, setting aside reserved zones for their habitation, but a few, the most vicious and incorrigible, replenished the casemates of Tartarus. Sweety Drops had more than a dozen "sealed" monsters on her account, so Celestia did not see the point in not listening to her opinion.

The pony, meanwhile, said with ardor: “Your Grace, I can swear that the creature has the skill of self-transfiguration. From above I could see how it turned its own paws into large claws, completely different in structure from the original! It easily cut open the sod and went underground... Considering what he also showed us, like the same disguise thanks to the cover, I would have treated this alien in the most skeptical way! It is possible that he is going to attack Ponyville!”

Celestia frowned in concern. Now she did not know what to think about this biped, as if in a mockery he was turning non-standard magic practices without any magic. Should it be considered a metal golem, so complex that it could be thought of as a living being, only not based on carbon? Who, in addition to himself, was a golem and by very indirect signs, also a necromancer? Diarch could not understand how this vinaigrette of absurdity, a heap of fragmentary observations, could be built into a coherent theory.

“Fluttershy said the creature looked disoriented when it first got here. Why do you think it is going to return, if the second time has set itself some goal outside of Ponyville?”

“His machine is left here,” Sweetie said calmly, as if it were a matter of course. “With all due respect, Your Grace, Fluttershy has a wide and detailed knowledge of the animals she loves, but to see in this alien another lost animal, which must be helped by all means - bad idea. "Human" obviously has a full-fledged mind and is able to set priorities. Even if something distracted him, he retreated only temporarily, in the expectation that his car had become unusable, and we will deal with it for a long time. If we want to catch him, I would recommend weakening surveillance of the crash site and setting up an ambush of pegasus among the clouds. Or, since you said that the rotorcraft carried some kind of ancient weapon, it is better to immediately deprive the alien of this opportunity and move the wreckage away from sin to Canterlot. True, in this case, a person can definitely lose interest in Ponyville and hide, and where his next blow will be inflicted, it will be impossible to predict. The choice is yours, princess...”

Probably, the help of the guardians of the Moon will still be needed, Celestia finally decided. The Phastral tribe had more experience in countering threats not tied by magic alone. And the presence of the youngest sister would be useful - she could try to look into the dream of a "person" if he had a subconscious. It is unlikely that the two-legged will sleep sweetly on a foreign land, and it is unlikely that Luna will be able to find him, pull out from his mind something other than scattered fragments of ideas and images, but who knows... Finally, the Princess of the Night herself could help her sister with fresh ideas and non-standard, which here would certainly be required, by an approach. No matter how much Lulu felt at times a craving for the old order and the same reckless conservatism in public, her sister would feel helpless in other ponies's dreams if she did not have the exceptional plasticity of consciousness and developed empathy. It was extremely difficult to stun the unknown to the one that herself was once turned into a nightmare. In a few moments, Celestia already knew which lines would be sent to Luna just after sunset.

“Let's not rush things in this regard, we know almost nothing about this creature, besides that we know very little. But I will take measures so that neither the citizens of Ponyville, nor anyone else is hurt,” agreed the princess. “Do you have any other guesses or suggestions, Agent Drops?”

“When hunting large, exceptionally tenacious game, the main thing is to find the right means and deliver one guaranteed blow.” Sweetie said so colorfully, as if she really was a primitive hunter defending her herd from wild ophiotaurs. “From what I’ve heard, you cannot use a spell to draw heat out of a person in order to freeze him or put him to sleep, just as you cannot paralyze him. Your Grace, use indirect influence on occasion. If a person cannot be electrified with an ordinary caste, let the guard create a voltage difference and strike him by transmitting electricity directly! Let them freeze the air around him, and instead of invisible spells use ordinary cables guided by telekinesis!”

The pony nodded emphatically at her sling with a hook. Celestia only smiled knowingly. No, the retired agent certainly did not try to curry favor after that fiasco with the bugbear, hoping to return to the service of the Crown, she only followed her vocation on occasion, and did it very well. Sweetie was a cute filly and seemingly harmless, just like a surprise candy... that under the bright wrapper can hide unexpected and sometimes knocking out tastes from you.

“Aren’t you being overly belligerent, Agent Drops?” The princess asked softly. “Still, I expect a sentient being to seek peace, not war. I express my gratitude to you for your service to Equestria, but I still hope that these tips for keeping a person by force will not be needed by the diarchy...”

“It was not advice, Your Grace. Simple guesses based on logic; You yourself will perfectly understand without me what and how to use against a stranger,” pony looked at her seriously, “I will call this advice: be careful and observe constant vigilance! Strong monsters can be seen from afar, they make themselves felt and are not afraid of a fight. Weak monsters are usually taken with cunning, like changelings, but cowardly and quickly surrender to the mercy of the winner. And then... all at once, it seems. Watch out for stabs in the back, they may be too strong. Do not allow yourself to think that you alone can set a trap on this monster, he can pretend that he has fallen into it, so that already you have made a mistake.”

It sounded quite assertive, so Sweetie Drops covered her mouth in dismay, twitching herself in front of the Equestrian mistress, but Celestia did not pay any attention to the omission of formalities. How much easier it would be if the person did not show separate fragments of the threats that she had to face on the throne, but simply would not be completely familiar to the princess! Or, in extreme cases, needed help after the crash of the apparatus, allowing the inhabitants of Ponyville to patch themselves up. The two-legged's distrust of a pony so unlike him evoked very sad thoughts. After all, mistrust and threat go side by side, they are eternal comrades... And, unfortunately, during her long life the alicorn could not avoid too many mistakes based on them. Celestia sighed and nodded.

“That's good advice, my little pony. I see that this kind of mistake can be very costly for all of us. So what about...” Celestia cut off the unspoken question as Agent Drops lifted her head restlessly and then pressed herself into the grass.

“Somebody flies here! I have to go,” pony squeaked at last, hiding in the meadow thickets on her bellies. “If anything, find me in Ponyville! Tell any city dweller that you would like to buy sweets from Bon-Bon!”

Some ten seconds later, a pegasus from the royal guard, covered in soap, glided down.

“Your Grace, were you going to lower the sun?” He breathed heavily, landing next to the princess and saluting. “Guilty of interrupting you, but the matter does not require delay!”

“Yes, sergeant.” Celestia said all over. Had something serious already happened in Canterlot during her short visit to Ponyville? If only Luna did not get mad because of the petition of another nobleman and did not begin to spread the old order everywhere...

Pegasus, meanwhile, fished a scroll from his sling and gave it to the princess with a bow: “Report from the northern borders, Your Grace! It took only an hour in the palace office.” Meaningfully looking around, the guardsman, lowering his voice, said: “It has returned.”

Celestia, at that time breaking the royal seal, turned into a kind of alabaster statue, to which an unknown joker attached real golden regalia. The eyelid on the princess's left eye twitched slightly, and for the first time in a long time, an expression that could be attributed to obscene flashed in her thoughts: Blessed flanks of Mine! How is it all at the wrong time...