From the appearance of the sun and assuming that the one who moved it kept its cycle to a strict schedule, Sophia had spent the rest of the day planting her crystal shards for her future use. She had just arrived at the foot of the mountain where a city was built upon it.
She didn’t want to be spotted on the roads because she wasn’t sure if a blue rabbit would be seen as odd and didn’t want to test that out. Instead, she levitated herself up the mountain and landed at the outer edge of the city.
She took a few moments to admire the city. The architecture was certainly unlike anything she had seen outside of a fairy tale book. The gold, white and purple colorings gave an extravagant appearance to the city though the fact that it was hanging off the side of the mountain made her wonder how strong the supports were to hold up such a city. Many ivory towers were built into the city while a number of rivers and waterfalls ran through it, giving the city a magical vibe to it.
That was when Sophia realized the nature of the energy these ponies used. She wouldn’t be surprised if they called it magic. Magic was a highly versatile form of energy that could be used to alter the fabric of reality in any number of ways. It was definitely more versatile than psionics which carried many similarities to magic, such as telekinesis, illusions and energy discharge. Magic could also be used to tamper with a mind like psionics could. About the only thing that separated psionics and magic was the source of where the two energies were generated from. For magic users, they had a wellspring of mana to draw that power from while psychics got their power from their minds.
Filing that thought away for later, Sophia hopped into the city and began her exploration, taking note of the interesting architecture.
With the sun beginning to set, Sophia saw the streets were becoming less dense with ponies. She observed the streets from a rooftop, taking in the variety of colors for pony coats and the marks on their flanks that appear to be nearly as unique as individual snowflakes.
Of course, she didn’t expect to go unnoticed forever as a winged pony, or pegasus as they were known in Earth mythology, with gold armor spotted her. It was rather medieval-looking but she guessed that it was enchanted to offer some protection. How it compared to the unenchanted marine corps suits her rank and file human soldiers wore she would have to test at some point.
“How did you get up here?” the guard wondered out loud as he flew in to try and grab Sophia.
However, Sophia wasn’t going to make this easy for him as she jumped over his grab and off his helm and landed on the street before rushing off. It was getting darker but she decided to give the local guard some sport before night fell.
The guard began to give chase from the air while Sophia stayed on the street, doing her best to act like a typical rabbit evading capture. She knew the guard intended to relocate her to the palace gardens since she read his mind a little but she was going to make him work for it.
While the guard was doing well in keeping up with her while she wasn’t using her powers, he became increasingly frustrated when she repeatedly evaded his attempts to grab her in his hooves. “Motherbucker!” he mumbled after the fifth attempt to grab her.
His eighth attempt was met with him crashing into a unicorn guard. Sophia turned into an alleyway and overheard a heated conversation between the two. “Private Shining Armor, did you see where the animal went?”
“Sir! What animal, sergeant, sir?” the private asked while quickly standing at attention.
“The blue rabbit that should have been in front of you just before I crashed into you. Grrr! At ease, private. Help me find this critter, they have to be around here somewhere.”
Sophia decided the short break was over and resumed the chase as she left the alley and blew a raspberry at the two of them, prompting them to resume the chase.
However, just as she was about to run off again, she found herself being lifted telekinetically by the new player in their game, Shining Armor if she heard right. She quickly discovered the source of the field when she saw the unicorn’s horn lighting up. Well, she wasn’t about to be caught so easily, even if she had to cheat a little. Using a tiny amount of her psionic power, she emitted a pulse that caught Shining off guard and disrupted his spell, causing him to raise a hoof to his head as a brief sharp pain made itself known in his horn.
“Private, are you alright?” the sergeant asked.
“I’m fine, sir. Let’s keep going.”
The next fifteen minutes were much more interesting as more guards joined in on the chase. Still, she kept the chase going for a while. At one point she spotted a unicorn mare in an alley getting mugged by an earth pony (based on the info that Nova telepathically sent to her) stallion. She had a few seconds to spare so she bicycle kicked the stallion in the chin, sending him flipping on his back. She was glad to see that Shining Armor was not so incompetent that he ignored the mugging scene and he made sure to check on the victim. Though it did disappoint her that he was the only one who focused on the scene and was forced to handle the suspect on his own while everyone else was focused on her.
She saw the sun quickly dip below the horizon and the moon quickly rose into the sky, giving the bunny a glimpse of a silhouette of a unicorn’s head on the lunar surface. She would have to think about that later.
For now, with the night begun it was time to bring her little game to an end as she raced back to where she felt Shining Armor’s mind. She saw the stallion walk out of the guard post, likely after placing the mugger in a cell. She stood in front of him long enough for him to spot her and wrap his hoof around her. “Gotcha!” he cried. Sophia didn’t struggle and waited for the other guards to arrive.
The sergeant from before glared at the bunny for a moment before he gave a nod to Shining. “Good work, private. See that it gets back to the gardens and make sure it doesn’t try to escape again.”
“Yes, sir!” Shining saluted. He then headed for the castle grounds in a three-legged gait as he didn’t want to risk using his magic to hold the creature and getting another headache for his efforts.
After some time the two entered the gardens where she noticed the hedge mazes in the area. As Shining entered the animal sanctuary of the garden a thought suddenly popped into his head. “Wait, you let me catch you, didn’t you?” Sophia smirked at him in approval of his deduction though she still had to take points away for the slow realization. Still, the stallion showed some promise, unlike the others who chased her earlier. Overall she gave him a passing grade. “What are you thinking?” he wondered. Sophia shrugged which prompted an exasperated sigh from the unicorn.
“Anyway, please don’t leave the garden, the citizens don’t like seeing animals in the streets.” He then turned away and left to return to his duties.
Sophia felt like this was probably a good time to call it a night. There wasn’t much information to be gained from the night scene at this time so she found a place that was not likely to be hit by the morning sun rays and curled up to go to sleep. Despite how she normally slept in a bed on a ship, Sophia was no stranger to roughing it. It kept her instincts sharp.
Sophia awoke an hour before sunrise, about when ponies began to get up and prepare to go about their day. Of course, this was going by Earth time so there was no telling what schedule the sun raiser kept when performing her daily task.
She found herself being stared at by a couple of squirrels and a few birds. It didn’t take a mind reader to know that she appeared odd to them. She owed them no explanation though and decided to leave the critters to their devices.
Today she decided on a little stealth to investigate the palace that served as this country’s seat of power. She needed to get a better look at the one who could use magic powerful enough to move the celestial bodies.
Weaving the shadows around herself, Sophia created a cloak that allowed her to avoid detection by the palace guards. She couldn’t blame them for their lack of means of passively detecting hidden intruders since she figured that such enemies were probably rare around here.
Not long after she entered the palace the rays of sunlight filled the alabaster halls. This didn’t deter her from continuing her exploration.
During her exploration she spotted an amber unicorn with a mane and tail with streaks of crimson and bright yellow racing down the hall with her eyes closed. She had a mark of a flaring star with a balanced mix of red and yellow that matched her mane. She noticed the tears flying onto the carpet. Curious about where the unicorn was going Sophia followed her up until she found a room that contained a mirror. The unicorn looked around as she stood before the mirror before she jumped into it as if the glass was actually water, much to Sophia’s surprise. Huh, must be a magic portal or something, I guess.
With that detour concluded Sophia proceeded to continue her exploration. There wasn’t much else of interest, short of a pair of fillies, one lavender and one lilac, walking around like they belonged here. The lavender one had a navy blue mane and tail with a purple and raspberry stripe and was walking around with her muzzle in a book. She had a magenta six-pointed star over a smaller white six-pointed star with five even smaller white stars around it on her flank. The lilac one had a royal purple mane and tail with an aqua stripe and she appeared to be trying to memorize the layout of the palace like a tourist. On her flank was a purple four-pointed star over an equal-sized white four-pointed star with a pair of vapor trails in two shades of turquoise.
She followed the two fillies until they met with the one she was looking for. Sophia noticed right away that the large mare, who was nearly twice the size of the average pony, appeared distraught.
“I am sorry, my beloved students, but I am afraid that our lesson today will have to be postponed. Recent matters have occurred that require my utmost attention.”
“Princess Celestia? What happened?” the lavender filly asked. “This was supposed to be our first lesson with you.”
“I am sorry for this, Twilight. I will make sure to have time for your lesson tomorrow. I ask that you and Starlight study together and review your knowledge of telekinesis until then.”
The two fillies, Twilight and Starlight, left the chamber, the former with a disappointed look on her face and the latter indifferent as it gave her more time to look around.
The larger mare, Celestia, was left alone in her study. Feeling that she was alone, she gave an exasperated sigh. “Where did I go wrong with Sunset? All I wanted to do was steer her away from dark magic and its corrupting properties. I couldn’t risk another Sombra rising up to torment my little ponies.”
Sophia took a small glimpse into Celestia’s mind and the image of the amber mare from earlier appeared at the forefront. This made her suspect that Celestia had a falling out with that Sunset pony from earlier.
Regardless, it seemed about as good of a time as any for first contact.