Chapter 3
When the sun rose, Twilight and Spike immediately got up to write to Celestia.
“Wow Spike, it’s not like you to get up so willingly,” said Twilight.
Spike picked up a pen and paper. “Are you kidding me? After what happened last night, I could barely sleep! Alright, so what do you want me to write?”
“Dear Princess Celestia, I fear all of Equestria is threatened. Last night Spike and I witnessed several meteors enter our atmosphere. They ripped through Cloudsdale and landed in the Everfree forest. I seek your advice in how we should handle this problem. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”
Spike finished writing the letter. He breathed fire onto it and it vanished in a wisp of smoke. And then they waited for Celestia’s response. It was not long until another letter appeared out of thin air in a small burst of smoke. Twilight picked it up.
“What does it say Twilight?”
“It says: Dear Twilight Sparkle, Luna informed me of the incident last night shortly after it happened. She says she was at the source of the event. But thank you for sending me this anyways on such short notice. I want you to gather together the inhabitants of Ponyville and form a search party and start as soon as possible. I was considering sending you and your friends ahead as a scout party but I figured it would be too dangerous. Happy hunting, Princess Celestia.”
Twilight looked over the letter a second time. “Spike, do you sense anything weird about what I just read?”
“Uh, yeah! Source? Search party? Danger? What is she implying?”
“Only one way to find out I guess.”
Twilight and Spike exited their house and immediately began waking up the ponies of Ponyville. They told them that under Princess Celestia’s orders the whole town was to form a search party. In forty minutes the whole town was awake and waiting in front of the Mayor’s podium. Twilight was waiting for the Mayor to show up, when she finally did. And she was clearly not in a good mood.
“Twilight Sparkle, there had better be a good reason for you and your assistant to wake us all up this early in the morning!” the Mayor loudly said to Twilight, catching everyone’s attention.
Twilight spoke up. “I already told you and everyone else. Princess Celestia wants us all to search the Everfree forest for evidence of last night’s event.”
Everypony in the crowd began to murmur and look at each other with confused looks on their faces. The Mayor looked at Twilight with irritation. “What event?”
“Oh that’s right I forgot to mention that to you all,” Twilight said a little embarrassed, “Last night, there was a meteor shower.”
The crowd began to panic and ask questions. “Look, if everypony will just settle down I’ll tell you everything that I know so far. Last night I was looking at the constellations when I noticed a group of meteors entering our skies. They ripped through Cloudsdale and landed in the Everfree forest,” Twilight explained, “I wrote to Princess Celestia as soon as it was morning about what happened. Apparently she and Princess Luna had already known about the incident, and may even know a little more about it than anyone else does.”
The Mayor stepped in. “And now the Princess wants us all to form a search party? For what? The meteors?”
“Correct Mayor. The Princess is gathering ponies from all across the area to participate in finding the impact sites, and she wants us to start as soon as possible. As you must all understand, this is very important. So, are you all in? Volunteers raise your hoofs!”
When Twilight was done with her speech, she waited for everypony’s response. They looked at each other with various looks, talked a little, and then they all raised their hooves in the air.
Twilight’s face lit up. “Excellent, everypony volunteered! Now- AH!” A blue blur had come out of nowhere and tackled Twilight to the ground. It was Rainbow Dash.
“Oh my gosh Twilight something terrible has happened last night a bunch off fireballs came out of nowhere and hit Cloudsdale well nobody was hurt fortunately but still it was scary but awesome at the same time and then Princess Luna showed up and -mph!” Twilight stuffed her hoof into Dash’s mouth before she passed out from lack of breath.
“Yes we know Rainbow; I saw it happen last night! Did Princess Celestia tell everyone up there to form a search party yet?” Twilight said.
“Oh, well actually yes she did. I came down here to see if you already knew about what happened. And two things you should know about. First, the Princess said that everypony should meet at the main entrance to Everfree. Second, I saw a group of ponies from Canterlot coming down the mountain while I was flying to here. Just thought I’d let you know. See ya later!” With that Rainbow Dash flew off to rendezvous with the rest of her group back up in Cloudsdale.
Twilight turned her attention back to her audience. “Alright ponies, let’s move out!”
During the walk to Everfree, Twilight, who was at the head of the group with Spike and the Mayor, heard voices calling her name out behind her. She turned her head. Running around the crowd up to her were four of her best friends; Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity.
Applejack was the first to speak. “Hey Twilight! So uh, did this whole meteor shower thing really happen? How many do ya reckon there were?”
“It really did happen Applejack. Like I said, I saw it with my own eyes. And I’d say there were…,” Twilight thought about how many meteors there were, “… about ten at least. Maybe more, I can’t remember for sure.”
Twilight looked over to Fluttershy. She seemed very nervous. “Hey Fluttershy, you seem anxious. Something on your mind?”
Fluttershy looked up. “What? Oh um, yes, actually. You see, when I heard about those meteors hitting the Everfree forest, I couldn’t but help think about all the poor little animals that were scared, or even hurt by them when they landed!”
“Oh cheer up now Fluttershy, I’m sure nothing was hurt,” Rarity said.
“You really think so?” Fluttershy asked hopefully.
“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she popped up next to Fluttershy, “And look on the bright side! After this little trip, I’ll throw a party for everyone!”
‘That’s Pinkie Pie for you,’ Twilight thought to herself.
“Hey Twilight, where’s Rainbow Dash? It’s not like her to miss out on something as big as this.” Applejack asked.
“Don’t you remember? Rainbow Dash went back up to Cloudsdale to meet up with her own group. Wait, there she is now!”
Rainbow Dash flew up to them. “Hey guys guess what! When me and my search party got to the entrance to Everfree, Princess Celestia and Luna were waiting for us there!”
“What?!” the group asked in unison.
“Yeah! They said they’re also gonna join in on the search! Oh- there they are now!”
The crowd had finally arrived at Everfree. There at the main entrance stood Princesses Celestia and Luna, both accompanied by two of their own guards. Also there were two groups of ponies. One was all Pegasus and the other was mixed with a slight majority of unicorns.
Celestia cleared her throat. “Excellent, so I assume we are all here? Ponyville, Cloudsdale, and Canterlot? Good. Now, before we go into the woods, I want you all to know what we are searching for.”
Twilight stepped forward. “Princess, you said we were searching for the impact sites, right?”
Celestia looked a little sheepish. “Well…yes but, there’s actually more to the story.”
The crowd began to speak up and shuffle a bit.
“Now settle down, settle down,” Celestia called out, “Now I didn’t want to alarm any of you when I first informed you of this. My sister Princess Luna will tell you what she…saw.”
Celestia stepped back for Luna, who stepped up. “Loyal subjects, this is the truth of what really happened last night. I had just finished putting the final touches on the night sky, when I felt a peculiarly strong surge of energy emitting from nearby in the sky.”
The entire crowd had her full unwavering attention.
“I went there to investigate. And when I got there, a loud, bone chilling noise rang out. A hole had opened out of the nothingness of space. Ponies, do you not yet grasp what I am telling you? Whatever had happened was more than powerful enough to defy the very laws of physics themselves!”
The crowd of ponies gasped and began chattering. Twilight was awed by Luna’s story. What could be powerful enough to break the laws of physics?
“And then, a group of… creatures fell out from the hole.” The ponies gasped at this. “They were enormous, covered in armor, and looked like absolutely nothing Equestria has ever seen in all of its history. They began to catch fire when they entered our sky. I cast a protective spell upon them so that they may live, but I could not stop them from landing. Then, well, you know the rest.”
The crowd of ponies was speechless. All they were able to do was stare at Luna with their mouths hanging open. They came back to when Pinkie Pie popped up and asked; “So are you saying that those meteors were really aliens?”
“Yes,” Luna said.
Ponies began loudly conversing with each other. Some were nervous, and others were angry, and some just didn’t know what to say. Celestia stepped forward. “Calm down, all of you!” The ponies quieted down.
Celestia began to speak. “Now for everypony’s safety, I want you all to travel in small groups. If you find any of these aliens, or yet if any of them are still alive, I want you to make nice with them, our best course of action is to make them our allies. Also, if they attack you, do not immediately fight back, try to reason with them. Remember they may be disorientated from their fall. If they persistently continue to try to harm you, you may fight back in self-defense or better yet, run and find another pony. Good luck to you all.”
With that Celestia, Luna, and their guards turned around and walked into the forest. The other ponies soon followed. The crowd split up into several small groups. One group consisted of Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Spike. At first the group followed a single path, then as the mass went deeper into the wood they began to split up. Eventually Twilight’s group was alone.
“Twilight,” Rarity said as she nervously looked at the twisted dark trees, “ How do we know if we’re close to one of those, *ulp*, aliens?”
“We don’t. We have to keep looking until we find one,” Twilight responded.
They continued walking for about ten minutes when Applejack lifted her nose. “Do ya’ll smell that? Its coming from over there!” Applejack sprinted off into the thick wood, but as she did so she accidently kicked some dirt into Rarity’s hair.
“You ruffian! You ruined my gorgeous hair style!” yelled Rarity, but Applejack was already gone. Rarity’s eyes twitched. “Oh, it is ON.” Rarity charged after Applejack.
“Wait, come back!” Twilight yelled out.
“Don’t worry Twilight, I’ll get ‘em back!” Rainbow Dash called out before she raced after Applejack and Rarity.
“No stop! D’oh!” Twilight was too late. She turned around.
“Okay, nobody else leave, underst- WHERE IS PINKIE PIE!?”
The only two who were left with Twilight were Fluttershy and Spike.
They looked around. “Oh, she must have wandered off while we weren’t looking,” said Fluttershy.
“Maybe she thought we were splitting up when the others left,” Spike suggested.
Twilight facehoofed herself. “Okay, nobody else leave, alright? Good. C’mon, we’re gonna have to find the others later.”
The trio continued searching through the woods for several more minutes. Eventually, they came across the beginnings of a trail of rubble. They followed it. It led them to a small clearing with a smoking crater in the middle. They hid behind a tree.
Spike took a peek. “Do you see anything?” Twilight quietly asked him.
“No, nothing’s moving. In fact it just looks like a pile of dirt.”
Twilight took a deep breath. “Well, we can’t hide here forever. C’mon!”
Twilight, Spike, and Fluttershy slowly crept up to the crater. When they got there, Twilight said, “It looks like something’s buried under here. Let’s dig it out.”
They started digging. It was at least two feet of debris after she started when Twilight heard a loud clang. She had hit something. She began to clear the dirt away, and observed what she had hit. It was hard and grey, so she assumed that it was a part of the alien’s armor.
Twilight cleared away some more dirt when she came across a symbol on the alien’s armor. She called over Spike and Fluttershy to take a look at it. The symbol was purple, and had the appearance of a menacing horned face.