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// Chapter 12: Greetings Princesses! 
// Story: Logic and Friendship. Roger! Roger! 
// by Anaylze 
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Morning came as it always does in Equestria, but at Fluttershy's cottage, things were not the norm. 

Flutter shy's animal friends were telling her that something strange was happening in the Ever-free Forest. Many of them had their homes destroyed by huge monsters and begged her to do something. 

Flutter shy spoke with a squirrel inside her cottage over Tea with her other animals. 

"Oh my! That's terrible Mrs. Nutters worth! I can believe something would just knock down all of that just because it was in the way! You and your family can stay here as long as you need to get back on your feet." She said in her soft voice. 

The squirrel and her family chittered happily and hugged Flutter shy's front leg, to which she smiled. 

But what could possibly do this? She vowed to find out. 

Suddenly there was a knock at her front door. She found Twilight and the rest of her friends outside. 

"Good morning, Flutter shy!" Said Twilight 

"Good morning, Twilight! What brings you here?" 

"I just wanted you to know the Princesses are coming today to meet the Rogers, and we're all going to be there, do you want to come too?" 

"Oh, that would be lovely Twilight! Let me feed everyone Breakfast first and get my new guests settled in." 

"Made some new friends?" Twilight asked smiling 

"No, a bunch of my animal friends who live in the forest lost their homes the other night to some monster! Can you believe it?" 

"What kind of monster?" 

"I'm not sure, but they said it was big and tan colored, and floated in the air!" 

"That's very strange, I'll have to look into it later. See you around Flutter shy!" 

"Goodbye Twilight!" 

Flutter shy closed the door and the group headed back to the Castle of Friendship. 

Kraken waited for the meeting to begin so he could listen in over the radio. He was curious as to what their leaders would be like. Would they be patient? Wise? Aggressive? Strong? Only time would tell. If the meeting, went well he may arrange a meeting with them himself. In the meantime, he needed to think of what course of action to take with the Dragon creatures. Should he orbitally bombard their primary area of inhabitation? Should he attempt diplomacy? 
Diplomacy seemed to be the best choice, but they seemed hostile. How would he accomplish this? 
Perhaps a shuttle could land some Droids and it could be accomplished holographically. 
Suddenly he remembered something: OOM-340 had mentioned their leader during their chat. Perhaps she could be persuaded to join in on the meeting. He contacted OOM-340. 

"Sir?" 

"You mentioned a Dragon Leader known as Princess Ember?" 

"Yes, the small Dragon mentioned her last night during my questioning." 

"Could you attempt to have her arrive at the meeting?" 

"I could talk to Twilight and see what she could do." 

"Identify Twilight." 

"She's the one who's been giving me and my guards shelter. She's purple, likes to read, umm, and she has wings and a horn." 

"Your primary orders are to introduce yourselves in a friendly way to their leaders, before introducing yourselves as ambassadors for the Confederacy of Independent Systems. I will signal you to activate your holo pad when the time is ready. Your secondary orders are to attempt to arrange a meeting with this Princess Ember." Kraken ordered "It would be beneficial to us to know the other dominant species on this planet politically." 

"Roger, Roger!"
 
The meeting had been scheduled for 10:30 AM, and things were nearly prepared. OOM-340 had requested Ember's presence to Twilight, as much as he didn't want to, and she wrote a letter inviting her to meet them. He was on edge. Sometimes he really hated his orders. He was waiting for the one to get him killed to come. 
What if she finds out about the operation in the forest? What if she found out they killed a Dragon? He'd be as good as melted down! 

OOM-340 and his guards sat down at wooden chairs in the room that would be used for conference. It was the room that held the map of the land, but for some reason, the table no longer displayed the land, instead it was a normal round table made of crystals. 

He stared up at the ceiling, just now noticing the tree roots that hung down from it like a chandelier, which was adorned with small glowing gemstones 

"It'll be fine." he told himself. 

Somehow, he still had a bad feeling. 

"I'll be fine." he said, attempting to reassure himself once more. 

Then Twilight walked into the room 

"They should be arriving shortly, I hope you're ready, they're very excited to meet you!" She walked up to the top balcony with her friends. 

Celestia and Luna's Chariot arrived though the sky, being pulled by a team of Pegasus ponies dressed in their royal guard armor. The chariot approached the Castle of Friendship before stopping in the air at its top balcony, where Twilight and her friends were waiting. Celestia stepped out of her chariot, followed by her sister Luna. 

"Greeting Princess Celestia" they all said, bowing. 

Celestia chuckled 

"The formality is not needed my friends; you don't have to act so formally when you see me! Relax!" She said with a smile. 
"Roger and his friends… erm, Roger are waiting inside for you. Princess Ember was also invited so she may show up later." Twilight said, opening the door to lead them inside. 

OOM-340 sat in his chair. He would be twiddling his thumbs anxiously, but the joint restrictions in his fingers made doing so impossible. His guards seemed unphased by the events that were coming, and their attention wandered around the room, looking for any signs of trouble. Suddenly the door at the far end of the room opened up and Twilight and her friends entered, followed by 2 Alicorns. They were much larger towering over the others and the 3 Droids by a foot. One was a bright white color, with a blue, green, purple and pink mane and tail, and the other one was a dark blue, almost the color of the night sky with a mane and tail that was a dark purplish black, with what appeared to be twinkling stars in it. What was strange about their hair, other than glowing almost, was that it seemed to be forever blowing in some nonexistent wind, in a sort of slow swaying motion. They all sat down, and the meeting began. 

"Greetings Roger, it's such a pleasure to meet you and your friends! I'm Princess Celestia, and this is my sister Luna" said the tall white one. 

"We have been waiting to meet thou for some time now." Said the darker one, known as Luna in a somewhat echoing voice.
 
There was a brief pause and suddenly OOM-340 realized it was his turn to talk. 

"Oh, um, uh, it's nice to meet you too?" he said nervously.  

"So, what brings you to the land of Equestria?" Asked Princess Celestia, "and what can we do to make your stay a pleasant one?" 

"Well…" OOM-340 ran what questions Kraken had wanted him to ask. Friendly interaction. He quickly thought of what someone would say. 

"How are you?" 

"I'm doing just fine" said Celestia "how about your sister?"
 
"We are doing just as good as our sister. How art thou?" 

OOM-340 didn't know what she meant by "How art thou". Art was a symbolic form of expression used by organics, but he didn't know what she meant by it in this case with the word Thou. He'd never seen that word before! 

"Um… what?" He asked 

"How art thou?" Luna repeated 

"I… I don't know what that means…" 

"What my sister is asking is how are you and your friends doing? Are you well?" 

Suddenly OOM-340 realized that the darker one must be speaking in an older form of dialect. One he was likely not programmed to understand. 

"I'm doing… okay." He spoke.
 
"That is well!" Said Luna in response. 

Yeah, definitely speaking in an older dialect. 

"What do you want to talk about?" 

"Could you tell us a bit about yourselves and how you came here to Equestria?" Asked Celestia 

"Well, me and my… erm… partners are Droids. Particularly of the B1 series, although I'm one of the OOM variants which is a predecessor to them. We were built by the corporation known as Baktoid Automata. We came here in a series of pods dropped down from a ship." 

Twilight was confused 

"Wait, wait, wait" she said " thought you said you crashed here?" 

"Well… erm… crud. I was afraid to tell you…" 

"Why would you be afraid?" Twilight asked, "we don't judge ponies by their past, as long as they promise to be good in the future." 

"Where would this ship be?" Asked Luna 

"I… It's in… I'm not… I don't know." he said, shrugging his shoulders. 

"If thou do not wish to tell, that is fine." Stated Luna "but we only wish to know so we can ensure the security of our land." 
"We have a very peaceful society that has not seen war in thousands of years, and we wish to keep it that way" continued Celestia, smiling friendly. "We wish to know of your intentions. Ours is to keep peace as I stated, but what is yours." 

"Its… the same… I guess?" he replied, growing more nervous. 

There was a beeping noise coming from one of his guards' hands. 

"What is that sound?" Asked Luna 

"Sir, it's… it's for you." The Droid said, hastily giving it to his commander. 

OOM-340 sighed and took the image caster device. 

He sighed "Here goes nothing." 

He hit the open communication button. A Hologram of the Super Tactical Droid known as Kraken appeared, displaying partial color on its blue haze, most notably his glowing yellow eyes. 

"Greetings Princesses, I am Commander Kraken of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, alternatively known as the Separatist Alliance. I have been observing your species for some time now through my subordinate." Said Kraken in his deep voice…