//------------------------------//
// Chapter 02 
// Story: Second Contact 
// by SpartanD014 
//------------------------------//

CHAPTER 2


Ponyville at 6:30 in the morning was certainly not the most exciting place. While larger cities like Manehattan or Canterlot usually were bustling with early morning activity of ponies getting to work, most individuals in the quaint countryside town were still asleep. One pony who was not asleep, however, was one particular Twilight Sparkle. It was a Wednesday, and every Wednesday Twilight would get up bright and early to get a head start on her studying. While most ponies thought that the mare already studied more than enough on most days, she never was one to underachieve. Feeling that it was time to get to work, Twilight quietly crept out of her bedroom (so as not to wake her sleeping assistant, Spike), and trotted down to the kitchen to brew some coffee. Entering the kitchen, Twilight used her magic to retrieve a bag of coffee grounds, and placed it next to the maker. While she filled the filter with the grounds, she hummed a happy tune. Most ponies would have felt glum about having to get up so early to study, but today Twilight had scheduled one of her favorite subjects: astronomy. Ponykind’s knowledge of the cosmos was still very limited, which, to her, made studying the subject all the more exciting. The coffee finished brewing, and she poured herself a cup. Walking into the main room of her library/home, she grabbed her astronomy book and took a seat on her couch. Her dark purple eyes moved back and forth, carefully taking in every word on the page. 

She had just gotten to reading about the life cycle of a star when her reading was interrupted by an obnoxious whining noise. Annoyed, she folded her ears over her head to block it out. It worked for a few moments, but then the whining simply got louder… and louder, and louder. The sound was coming from outside, so Twilight carefully put her book aside, placed her coffee mug on an end table, and walked to the front door. She pushed the large door open with her magic, and stepped outside into the cool, crisp morning air. As soon as she passed through the door, the whining became much louder. She took several steps from her home, then turned her eyes skyward. Immediately, her eyes met a large, burning fireball clearing the upper atmosphere. As the fireball descended below the cloud layer, the flames diminished, but whatever it was, it was still billowing a large amount of smoke. Her eyes opened wide in wonder as the object quickly continued falling towards the ground. It was still well over a thousand meters away, but Twilight was beginning to be able to make out small details. Whatever it was, it was reflecting the ample sunlight that 6:30am provided, meaning that it was made of some form of metal. She also noticed that the object appeared symmetrical. From her angle, it had a large, bulbous front, with two boxes extending out from either side. After a few more seconds, the object soared over Ponyville at incredible speeds, heading straight past the town and into the Everfree forest. Another few seconds passed, and then she heard a dull boom as whatever it was crashed into the dark, dangerous forest. 

“Twilight!” a scratchy, feminine voice yelled from behind her. Twilight turned around and saw her Pegasus friend, Rainbow Dash, hovering a few meters off of the ground. She lowered herself to the ground, and then ran to the lavender unicorn. “Did you see that!?” she said. 

“Yes, I saw it crash in the Everfree forest,” Twilight replied. Before Dash could speak again, a loud, southern accent filled the air.

“Just what in tarnation was that!?” yelled Applejack. Twilight turned to address the earth pony farmer, but before she could open her mouth, her eyes were met with a large pair of blue ones, supporting a large pink mane. 

“OHMYGOSHTWILIGHTDIDYOUSEETHAT!?” the pink party pony, Pinkie Pie, yelled right in Twilight’s face. Surprised, Twilight jumped back a few paces. Twilight once again opened her mouth to reply, but was once again cut off, this time by a rather grumpy looking white unicorn.

“Just what is all the commotion about, my dears? And must it be taking place at 6:30 in the morning?” Rarity said, clearly upset about having been woken up. 

“I-,” Twilight began, before she was, yet again, interrupted, this time by a soft, clearly shaken voice.

“Twi-Twilight?” Fluttershy asked nervously. “Wh-what was th-that?”

Believing all of the interruptions to be over, Twilight finally opened her mouth to speak.

“Everypony, I do not know what that was,” Twilight began. “From what I saw before it crashed, it seemed to be made of some kind of metal, and was symmetrical in nature. It crashed just a couple of miles that way, in the Everfree forest.” Twilight pointed in the direction that she had seen the object crash in. Her friends all looked, and noticed a small plume of smoke rising from the area. 

“Obviously, nothing like this has happened before. That is why it is critical that we go to investigate.”

The reactions of her friends were varied: Rainbow seemed excited at the challenge, Applejack was indifferent, Rarity yawned, Pinkie (as usual) smiled, and Fluttershy retreated in fear. As for Twilight, she wasn’t quite sure what she felt. Deep down she was fearful of what might be awaiting them at the impact site, but on the other hoof, she was excited to satisfy her naturally high curiosity. Twilight set off down the main street of Ponyville, her friends walking close behind (the exception being Fluttershy, whom Applejack had to push). As Twilight walked down, she noticed many other ponies exiting their doors and looking around, confused as to what was going on. When they saw that the Elements were handling it (as usual), they went back inside their homes to continue their rests. 

It was a short trek to the edge of the Everfree forest, just by Fluttershy’s cottage. At the threshold to the dark woods, Twilight and her five companions stopped. Twilight turned to glance at them, then set forth into the forest. Ponies, no matter how hard they tried, had never been able to fully control the forest. The place was the embodiment of chaos; it rained whenever it pleased, dangerous beasts roamed freely, and for that reason it was heavily cautioned that nopony enter the area. Of course, Twilight and her friends had been in many times already. They had never been too far deep inside, the furthest being the Castle of the Two Sisters, which was a relatively safe area. The crash site of the foreign object would take them just about a mile further than the castle. For all Twilight knew, nopony had yet been this far into the forest. She felt excitement at the opportunity, but most of her was terrified of what they would encounter. 

The group travelled in silence for most of the journey. It was still early, the only one of them who was fully woken up was Applejack, who had been up before the sun to go applebucking. After about a half an hour of walking, they came upon the crash site. Whatever it was had created a sizeable clearing, and was currently resting lopsided next to a small hill. Sparks flew out of the object every few seconds, and parts of it appeared to be twitching. The object was something that nopony in the group had ever seen before. Twilight couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was or what it did. Lighting up her horn, Twilight searched the area for any life signs. The last thing she wanted was to be snuck up on by a creature of the Everfree. Surprisingly, she found one, and it appeared to be inside of the crashed object. 

“There’s something in there!” Twilight called out. She ran towards the back of the object, her friends in close pursuit. The back was sloped upwards, with what appeared to be a small window set into it. The window was too foggy to look inside of, but it lead Twilight to believe that the slope was some form of door. She could see no obvious knob, and with no other ideas of how to open it, she turned to magic. Gripping the door in her telekinetic pull, she began to yank against its very tight hinges. She pulled continuously for several seconds, before finally the door slammed downwards, revealing the interior of the object. Lining the sides were what appeared to be small seats, but they were shaped oddly for anypony to sit in. At the back left was a large, olive drab box, and next to it was another door. The group of ponies ventured inside, with only Rainbow Dash staying outside to keep guard. Twilight approached the second door, and spotted what she believed to be a button on one side. Cautiously, she pressed the button, and the door quickly slid open. 

What lay beyond was a mess. Long tubes were sticking out of parts of the walls, and many were sparking. In the center was another strangely shaped seat, though this one was occupied. Inside it sat a very large… something, bent down over a table with many buttons on it. Whatever it was, it too was made out of metal, this one a dark gray color. At certain intervals, the dark gray gave way to black, which appeared to be made of some other material. Twilight activated her life detection spell, and found that her lone life sign seemed to be emanating from the metal “something”. Twilight gripped the metal creature with her magic, and attempted to sit it upright. She was surprised to find that, though it seemed limber, it was actually quite heavy. She kept on trying, and finally sat it upright in the chair. The creature’s face appeared to be a flat, reflective gold surface, which had a large crack running down the middle. Dried blood covered the wound, and Twilight noticed there was also a fair bit on the front window. Curiously, Twilight extended a forehoof and carefully, very carefully, touched the creature.




Adam-D014 awoke with a jolt. The first thing he took notice of was the raging headache that he had. The second was a warm, painful feeling on his forehead. He opened his eyes slowly so as not to let in too much light at once, and make his headache worse. When they were fully opened, he noticed that most of his HUD was gone. A large crack ran down the middle of the visor, which scrambled any HUD elements in the area. He was currently without crosshairs, a shield status display, and health status bar. What he did have was flickering, making it hard to see what the HUD element was trying to tell him. His motion tracker cut out every few seconds, and didn’t seem to even be showing anything. His ammo counter cycled through dozens of weapons, none of which he was currently carrying, and his grenade counter was turning on and off. 

Adam tried to move, but found that he couldn’t. Right, he thought, armor lock. With a series of blinks, Adam brought up his (still shaky) systems panel, and deactivated armor lock. His arms fell to his sides, and immediately his suit registered a touch. At first, Adam chalked the touch up to malfunctioning systems, but upon second thought, he realized that he had felt his arm move as well. Slowly, Adam turned his helmeted head towards where the touch came from, and came face to face with… a horse? The horse stared back at him, equally confused. Normally Adam would have believed that he was on a UNSC colony that had animals transported to it, but then he realized that his particular horse was a bright lavender color, and had a large horn extending from its forehead. The horse, clearly nervous, began to retreat back through the cockpit door into the troop bay. Adam released his harness, and stood up out of the chair. He felt light-headed for a brief moment, and put his hand on the back wall to steady himself. When it passed, he stepped forward and exited the cockpit, entering the troop compartment. Inside was something even more confusing: six horses, each an equally ridiculous color. He noticed that two had horns, two had pairs of wings, and two seemed to be much more like the horses of Earth, which no strange extremities attached to them. All but one of them gave him quizzical looks, the only one not looking was watching outside of the Pelican. Adam looked at each of the small horses, and each of them looked at him. Well, they don’t appear too intelligent… thought Adam.

“… Hello?”

… Wait, what?

Something had definitely spoken. He had heard something, in perfectly clear English, say “hello”. Looking around, his eyes settled on the purple horse, who had stepped just the slightest bit closer. It couldn’t have been-

Adam’s train of thought was cut off as a loud roar split through the air. All of the horses quickly turned their heads out of the door, and ran outside. Quickly grabbing an M6H Magnum pistol and clipping it to his thigh, Adam followed them into the clearing his Pelican had made. Once outside, Adam immediately saw the source of the angry roar. Right outside of the dropship stood what appeared to be a massive lion with huge bat wings and a scorpion’s tail. The six horses all exchanged nods with one another, and Adam saw the purple ones horn begin to glow. A soft lavender glow slowly enveloped the giant beast. It stared at the glow for a few moments, confused, but then set its sights back on the horses. It leaped forward, and swung a large, clawed paw at the purple one standing right in the middle. The paw connected with its side, and sent it flying into the side of the Pelican. It hit it with a dull clang, and fell down, unconscious.

“Twilight!” one of the horses, a blue Pegasus, yelled out. At the sight of their now unconscious friend, Adam noticed the horses begin to nervously back off. This time, Adam was sure that he had seen one of the horses speak. Unsure of what to do, Adam figured that the horses were the more peaceful creatures here. He unholstered his M6H, aimed at the beast’s head, and fired off two shots. Both connected with the forehead, and sent blood and brain matter spraying out. The creature continued standing for a moment, before it crumpled to the ground, dead. One of the horses, this time a yellow Pegasus, put a hoof to its mouth and then proceeded to throw up in the bushes. The other four looked at Adam, their expressions a mixture of surprise and fear. His present job done, Adam holstered the magnum, and walked over to the unconscious horse. Based on its body shape, and the way it had definitely spoken to him earlier, he concluded that it was a female. He picked up her unconscious, bleeding body, and carried her inside the Pelican. The five other horses followed, all confused as to what he was doing. Once inside, he pressed a button on the side of the troop bay and the back hatch closed. Almost immediately, he heard a frantic banging on the large bulkhead. Adam set the horse down in the middle of the floor, her wound facing up at him. Adam retrieved a medical kit from the back wall, and began to assess the damage.

The horse clearly had some broken ribs, and very likely had a concussion from hitting the Pelican so hard. Adam noticed that her breathing was shallow, as she had likely had the wind knocked out of her too. Every few seconds she would cringe in pain, and would twitch. Adam grabbed a sedative from the medical kit and injected it into her. Almost immediately the twitching stopped, and she fell into a deep sleep. She had already lost a lot of blood, so Adam had to work quickly. He reset each one of her ribs into their proper locations, which, considering the different anatomy, was not easy. He then grabbed a canister of biofoam, inserted the nozzle into the wound, and sprayed it in to seal it shut. Already the bleeding had stopped, and her breathing was returning to normal. All that was left was to cover her up. He took a roll of battle dressings from the medical kit, and rolled her midsection in it. He then taped it down, and covered her with a long body splint. It didn’t fit well, but he had to make sure that she did not move, or else her ribs could move again before they were healed. Adam checked his clock. It had been thirty minutes since he brought the alien creature into his Pelican, and still he could hear the annoying banging against the bulkhead door. Deciding it was high time he returned her to her friends, Adam picked up the wounded horse and walked towards the door.




Rarity sat on the ground outside of the strange metal object, examining the amount of dirt getting into her coat. She scoffed at how dirty her hooves were getting, and then looked up at Rainbow Dash, who was slamming both of her forehooves into the door of the object. 

“Dear, you’ve been at that for half an hour now, and you haven’t made much progress,” said Rarity. “Why don’t you just stop and wait?”

“Wait for what!?” the aggressive Pegasus replied. “For that thing to kill Twilight? Nu-uh, not on my watch!” She then turned back to the door and continued hitting it. She stopped when she saw a burst of steam emerge from the corners of the door, and cautiously took a few steps back. The door lowered itself down, and Dash saw the same metal creature from before, now holding a bandaged Twilight Sparkle. It walked forwards, out of the object, and stood in front of the five ponies. Carefully, it lowered her to the ground, and then stood back up. Both parties looked at each other for an awkward minute or two, before finally, it surprised all of the ponies by speaking.

“The sedative will wear off in a few hours,” it began, with a deep, gravelly voice. “She suffered multiple broken ribs, and has a pretty bad concussion. Keep her well hydrated, and make sure she doesn’t move, not until her ribs heal.” It then turned back towards the object, and began to walk inside. It stopped when Fluttershy wrapped her forelegs around one if it’s long legs. She looked up at him, teary-eyed.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. The creature simply stared for a moment, and Fluttershy peeled herself off. It then looked back forwards, and entered the metal object. The door closed behind it, leaving the ponies all alone in the Everfree.

“Come on y’all,” said Applejack. “Let’s get going.” She gingerly picked Twilight up and placed her on her back, then began walking out of the clearing. The other four ponies followed behind. Rainbow Dash heard an odd shimmering sound as she left the clearing, and turned to look back at the object, only to find it was not there. She squinted, confused, but decided that what was best right now was to get Twilight back to Ponyville. She ran to catch up to her friends, and they began the long trek back.