The Lunar princess nodded. “And it was surrounded by a group of armored Humans?”

The gold eyed guard shook his head. “They were much too tall to be humans. The average man is only four to four and a half feet tall. These creatures were well above five feet, some even topped seven!”

The moment the meteor had entered the atmosphere, she had sent out a battalion of her personal royal guards to recover it for research. This new concept of radioactivity had just emerged, and for all they knew, the meteor could have been a treasure trove of information. Celestia seemed to have seen the meteor as some sort of threat, but why, she wouldn’t say. The white alicorn had simply fortified Canterlot, and left it at that.

As Luna wondered what exactly the guard had seen she decided that the best option would be to go there herself. After all, she had received reports of what seemed to be an odd looking metal building, and if the creatures had built it, than it could mean they had a nation of their own. A potential ally and trading partner could be gained.

‘I will greet them,’ decided Luna. If anypony was going to be speaking to creatures that had never been seen before, one of the princesses should be the ones to do it.

Rising out of her throne, Luna trotted towards the door, humming a merry tune to herself as she prepared to depart.

At the landing site, two ships sat parked on the ground, one a sleek black fighter, with the words “The Veteran” painted onto a side. The other was a large winged ship with thrusters adorning the ends of the rotating wings. On its hull, painted in black and white, was the USSF logo: Two black, curved line surrounding a cercle, with the letters “USSF” below the emblem.

Around the ships, were four ellipsoid pods. All the pods’ doors were closed, and sealed shut, in preparation for drop ship mounting and transport. The camp was almost eerily still. Strewn upon the ground, were the burnt corpses of timberwolves, now just smoldering piles of ash. As Luna looked down upon the unusual scene with wide eyes, she felt a tightness in her chest. The princess of the night was about to meet a race new to Equestria.

She slowly glided down to the ground. Just at the outskirts of the crowded clearing, the princess slowly opened up her wings, put on her most regal demeanor, and calmly strolled into the camp. Though she didn’t know it, she was in fact being monitored by both the ships’ scanners. Not to mention, being watched by the pilot and OSS operatives.

Not seeing anything, Luna lit up her horn to cast a simple life detection spell. As soon as her horn lit up however, there was a flurry of movement from one of the metal structures marked “The Veteran.”

A robotic female voice emanated from the ship, loudly stating, “Arming Liberator. Halt use use of Mobile Action Global Interactive Control.”

Then a red line of light connected her to what seemed to be six metal pipes mounted on the building. The pipes were rotating at an incredible speed, and the Lunar princess quickly realized that they were an odd weapon. Surprised by the sudden movement and threat, Luna lost her grip on the magic and backpedaled in shock.

As soon as her horn went dim the same cool female voice said “Compliance detected. Unarming Liberator. Use of MAGIC is discouraged.”

Inside the dropship, the OSS and pilot were gritting their teeth, hoping the automatic defence systems hadn’t somehow scared off the equine lifeform. It obviously understood what the AI had said, considering it hadn’t used magic since the systems had activated. But that didn’t mean that it was able to comprehend that a computer had issued the threat. Suddenly the internal speaker crackled and they picked up insanely loud shouting.

“Hello! We are Princess Luna, of Equestria! We have learned of your presence here, and wish to establish a diplomatic relationship between our two great nations!”

The pilots’ hands snapped up, covering his ears, “DAMN! Turn it down, turn it down!”

The OSS captain shook his head as one of his men reduced the internal speaker volume. This lifeform obviously didn’t understand the term “subtle”.

The speaker crackled again, but this time, Lee’s voice rang out, “You’re cleared for take off. A landing bay has been prepared. Another trooper has been dispatched, for the Elite's fighter.”

The shock squad captain radioed back “Sir, there’s a creature outside trying to make first contact.”

“The Elite’s already handling it. Just leave, and make sure you don’t hurt it in the process.”

Outside Luna stared wide eyed, as the sealed pods were lifted off the ground, and pulled closer to the hull of the ship. Suddenly, the ground began to rumble. Two pillars of bright blue flames sprayed out of the ship, onto the ground.

The heat Luna felt was incredible. The force of the blast was literally pushing her away. Then, slowly, the building began to rise. The noise was so loud that not even the Royal Canterlot voice could drown it out. As the building rose, it kicked up dust, and debris, sending them in a whirlwind around the building.

As its altitude increased, the intensity of the heat, and sound decreased. It flew upwards, till it was just a speck in the sky. Then there was an ear shattering crash, and a shock wave as it flew away.

As Luna stared at the now empty sky, she began wondering if she had somehow offended, or scared it’s inhabitants.

“Assistance request noted. What assistance do you require?”

As the voice spoke, a smile spread across Luna’s face. “I wish to know who you are!” said the princess excitedly

“I am artificial intelligence, designated Cygnus-X1. I am commonly referred to as ‘Sexy’ by John Punch” dead panned the computer.

Luna frowned at the ship. “Where are you? I wish to speak to you in person.”

“I am housed in compact data unit four on John Punch’s personal fighter, ‘The Veteran’.”

“Can you take me there?” Asked Luna, a twinge of hope in her voice

“Negative. You are too large. You are not a data packet.”

Luna, flabbergasted at the being’s gall, opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, the ground began to shake, and a loud rumbling was heard.

Luna quickly looked around, and saw the source of the noise. Another building was descending from the sky. The building stopped a few hundred feet in the air, and something fell out of it. As it plummeted towards the ground, the princess recognised the shape. It fit the the description of the creatures her royal guards had notified her of.

About halfway into the fall, the building the creature had fallen from began to ascend back above the clouds.

A second later, a torrent of blue flames slowed the creatures’ decent, and it landed rather close to Luna with a metallic clang. Once the dust had cleared, the creature could be seen sitting in the rather small depression in the ground.

It stood six and a half feet high, much taller than Luna. It’s armor was green, and gray, and it sported a faceplate with a black slits where its eyes should have been. Rather than a mouth, the creature, which was comparable to a very large human, was sporting a triangular indent on the faceplate.

Luna quickly regained her composure, and stood tall, in an attempt to look regal. The creature however, completely ignored her, and casually strolled towards the building. As he approached, an oblong glass dome on the top opened up, and the computer greeted the creature.

“Greetings rifleman.”

“Hello Cygnus. I’ll be flying you back to the Monarch,” said the armored creature in a rather peppy, but distorted tone.

The rifleman complied, freezing in his tracks. Turning on his heel, he took a long look at Luna. “Yes?” he asked, his voice distorted and aggressive.

As John walked through the small town, he carefully observed the locals and their actions. He saw men, women, and ponies milling about, and browsing the market’s wares. Other than one odd bubble gum pink pony, who seemed to be tailing him. In all honesty, it was slightly off-putting, considering the short amount of time he had spent in the small town.

He couldn’t help but smile at the rather comical way she was going about it. She would zip from stall to stall, occasionally putting on silly, and ineffective disguises like fake mustaches, and sunglasses.

The pink pony aside, John had noticed the odd stares the locals had been giving him. The elite had been able to cross from one end of the town to the other in a matter of twenty minutes, so he had decided the stares were simply due to the fact that he wasn’t exactly a familiar sight. This seemed like a place where everyone knew everyone. That and his lofty body type; most of the humans didn’t seem to top five feet.

During Punch’s second pass through the town’s square, he noticed the yellow pegasus he had seen when he was in his armor. She seemed to be talking frantically to a purple pony...with a horn on her head.

‘A unicorn...wow. I get to fight man eating wolves and find two creatures from mythology. I can tell I’m going to have fun with this.’

Shrugging, John decided to talk to someone he was at least a little familiar with. Sauntering over, he stood, for a moment, and listened in.

“Fluttershy, there’s nothing to be scared of! If it wanted to hurt you, wouldn’t it have done it before?”

“It’s still dangerous! And...big. It killed a timberwolf...” moaned the pegasus.

‘Probably talking about me. Best jump in. And by jump in, I mean rudely interrupt.’

John took a deep breath, and made a big deal of clearing his throat to catch the attention of the two ponies. They quickly turned to look at the human, Fluttershy with a bit of awe, Twilight with distaste. The unicorn, due to her canterlot heritage, wasn’t exactly fond of humans; though she wasn’t openly hostile towards them, like some of the higher class. She just found them to be something of a nuisance. They really weren’t good for anything.

The elite stared with wide eyes at the pink pony who had been following him for the past half hour. She had somehow launched herself out of a cannon at him. John however, had been lucky enough to duck before she could tackle him, and the result was a hyperactive fuzz ball smashing into a flower stand, ten feet in front of him.

The elite turned his gaze toward the unicorn, who was now staring at her pink friend with her mouth open. “Might want to close your mouth, ma’am. A bird might decide to roost in there.”

The unicorn’s mouth quickly snapped shut, and she turned to glare at John, who had an impish grin plastered across his face.

“Birds don’t fly that low, silly!” Shouted Pinkie from the broken flower stand. In the blink of an eye she zipped over.

The elite’s grin grew. “Oh really? Like that flower on yours?” The pink pony looked up, and giggled as she say a daisy sitting in a clump of dirt on top of her head. “My name is John, I’m new in town.”

“I know! But that’s only because I know everypony, and I mean everypony in town! Oh, my name’s Pinkie Pie by the way.” She chirped.

Stopping her bouncing she sat on her haunches, and gave him a smile. “So, who do you work for?”

John held the grin, but quickly began to panic. ‘What the hell is she talking about?’

The rifleman sighed, and turned off his external amplifiers, and exited combat mode, making the distortion in his voice a bit less pronounced and aggressive. “Very well. What would you like to talk about?”

“I wish establish relations between our nations.”

‘Holy crap...why can’t all first contacts go like this?! But, there’s still the ‘humans are slaves’ deal. It could be a ruse. The SAI sent back intel, and the Elite is still gathering information. Lee will most likely tell me to back off anyways. Best just make a warm lead, then.’’

“I wouldn’t mind talking for a little while…”

Heads and Tails

by Corvo

Second Contact